PS 3513 
.1263 
PI3 
1912 
Copy 1 



FTER 



YEARS 



(7 W Other Sketches 



By 

David Gibson 




Class. 






Book SL zh^f iu 



Copyright 1^^. 






CfiPyRIGHT DEPOSIT 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

AND OTHER SKETCHES 



Br 
DAVID GIBSON 



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Clebelanb 

THE DAVID GIBSON COMPANY 
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Copyright, 1912 

By THE DAl^ID GIBSON COMPANY 

Published Stptember, 1912 



gCLA3<J0591 



TO MY BUSINESS ASSOCIATE 
ROBERT E. GAMMEL 



These sketches originally appeared^ 
for the most part^ in the Gibson 
magazines^ a series of personally 
edited monthly publications devot- 
ed to industrial and commercial 
sociology^ where they were used 
in providing variety to more 
serious editorial 
expression 



CONTENTS 

Page 

After Many Years 3 

How Grandma Cleaned the Attic 17 

A Tragedy of Progress 25 

Bill's Day Off 33 

Just One Morning 39 

The Awakening of Mulo Place 51 

The Country Barber Shop 65 

Memories of an Old Man 75 

*'What Time She Burnt" 85 

The Man and the Mouse 91 

Lige Tinchard — Preacher 105 

The Egotism of Memory 1 13 

The Broken Spell 119 

The Man From Keersburg 127 

The Sporty Bachelor 141 

The Flat Next Door 153 

The Melodrama of Yesterday 163 

The Reformation of Salutie 171 

At Kimes' Corners 181 

Grandma Ross' Story 189 

The Country Preacher 197 

Autumn 207 



AFTER MANY YEARS 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

HE sat in the smoking compartment of 
a Pullman, chewing the end of an 
expensive perfecto — a large man of 
perhaps five and forty. The type that gives 
one the impression of manual work and priva- 
tion in early years and luxury and leisure in 
later life. 

The train stopped at a small station where 
the principal citizens stood about the plat- 
form in copper-riveted overalls scratching 
their shins with their boot-heels. 

"I was reared in just such a place," he said. 
"In a central Indiana town consisting of a 
drab depot, a red elevator, a hog-chute and 
a saw-mill, all adjoining a trunk-line railroad 
track; a public square, a court-house in the 
center, surrounded by stores of an agricul- 
tural district — the hub of the community, 
with four streets extending In as many direc- 
tions on which the abodes of man and beast 
became further apart till they diminished to 
open roads with green pastures on either side. 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"My father was the one man in the com- 
munity who, even on week days, wore a black 
Prince Albert coat, white waistcoat with ivory 
ball buttons, pleated shirt, stovepipe hat, thin 
soled shoes, carried a cane and smoked smooth 
yellow cigars. 

"Formerly a farmer — a 'weak-heart' 
farmer — this imaginary affliction excused him 
from manual work, justified selling his land 
and moving into town to become a country 
justice of the peace. 

"A natural, almost phenomenal, mathe- 
matician, he occasionally did surveying with 
an old peep-sight or Jacob's staff transit. 

"There was nothing the matter with my 
mother's heart. Aside from household work, 
she raised chickens, milked cows, made but- 
ter, gave reed-organ lessons and kept a 
boarder or two, thereby materially assisting 
my father in maintaining himself in the gen- 
tlemanly attire and the dignified idleness of a 
country squire. 

"Many are the times I have seen my mother 
take her worn hands from a tub of white 
waistcoats and pleated shirts, and with water 
wrinkled fingers, pick a quarter from a purse 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

of her own money to send me to a store for 
a day's supply of my father's smooth yellow 
cigars. 

"Slight in body, broken in spirit, she 'trod 
the wine-press alone.' 

"To my father's deep chagrin, I did not in- 
herit his mathematical ability — I was deficient 
as he proficient. Though I more than main- 
tained an average in other studies, he 
preached to me about industry being a sub- 
stitute for talent and forced me to study many 
hours each evening under his tutorage, but 
my stupidity in even the simple examples of 
fractions was such that my parental instructor 
usually closed a lesson with an exhibition of 
towering rage. 

"One day in school the reading class was 
called. In this study I excelled — I could not 
only read with understanding, but with feel- 
ing. The lesson that day was 'The Death of 
Little Nell' in 'McGuffey's Fifth Reader.' A 
certain part of this I could not read without 
crying. I counted the number of paragraphs, 
the turns ahead, and found that this would 
fall to me. My cap was in my pocket. I 
asked to be excused and ran off for home. 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"Unexpectedly I met my father in the door- 
yard. 'What are you doin' home at this 
hour?' he demanded sternly; 'school ain't out 
yet.' 

" 'They — they — was readin' a sad piece in 
the reader, I — I — was ashamed to cry before 
the whole school and — and — ' 

" 'Well,' he shouted, at the same time seiz- 
ing a narrow flour-barrel stave, 'guess you 
ain't ashamed to cry before me!' 

"A cloud of dust arose, there were the 
shouts of an enraged man, the screams of a 
child and the resounding blows on a frail 
body. 

"A fourteen-year-old boy emerged from 
that cloud of dust with love for his father 
gone forever. 

"I ran to my mother, knelt before her, and 
wept — not with pain but with despair — the in- 
justice, the seeming hopelessness of the condi- 
tion into which I had been born — father's in- 
sensibility to my finer instincts. 

"My mother with her work-worn hands 
and cold water, smoothed my bodily wounds, 
but the spirit of revolt arose within me. 

6 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"The next day, wandering into the hotel 
stable yard, I found an old man, standing be- 
fore a hearse-shaped wagon, gaily painted and 
divided into many compartments with doors 
at the sides and end, a buggy-top over the 
front seat and filled with street-corner mer- 
chandise — sold by the light of a gasoline lamp 
hung on a clothes prop nailed to the side of a 
drygoods-box rostrum. 

"As I was curious the old man showed me 
through his stock, which consisted of cheap 
jewelry, 'Dr. Littleton's Lightning Liniment, 
for Man and Beast'; books — 'How to Shine 
in Society,' 'Funny Stories by Funny Drum- 
mers, or How to Entertain Your Customers,' 
'Every Man His Own Lawyer,' 'Ready Let- 
ter-Writer,' and 'Household Recipes' — how to 
make baking powder, bluing, paint for a 
cent a pound, whitewash that wouldn't come 
off, and how to cure squeaky shoes. 

"In one compartment was a box-like ma- 
chine of galvanized iron — for washing and 
drying dishes, the old man explained. The 
dishes were placed on wire racks in a tight 
box, hot water being forced against them by 
means of a hand crank-operated rotary fan. 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

After cleaning and rinsing the water was 
drawn off by means of a large faucet at the 
bottom, and the fan used to blow the dishes 
dry. He had invented it, he said, for domestic 
use; had sold a few, but there wasn't much 
demand, as he expressed it, for wife-saving 
devices in. that country; for men found it 
cheaper to work their wives to death, 

"At this I told my trouble, the old man 
walked to the rear of the wagon, lowered a 
rack-life shelf supported by two straps, and 
gave a suggestive wink. 

"From that rack next day I saw the last of 
my native town. I didn't see my father again 
until — well — after many years. 

"My benefactor was all my father should 
have been, paying my board wherever we 
stopped, setting me up with a stock of goods 
and allowing me the profit on all I sold from 
house to house, 

"We traveled with comfort. The old man 
traded horses frequently and usually got bet- 
ter animals than he gave; we made money 
and lived on the best the country afforded, 

"After seven years of road life my bene- 
factor fell ill, and realizing that it was his 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

last bed, executed a bill of sale in my favor 
for all his possessions, amounting to a few 
thousand dollars. 

"After discharging my employer's last few 
commissions I planned to visit my family, 
but did not. By chance I learned that my 
mother had gone to her first and last rest and 
my father had remarried. 

"Almost from the outset I had seen the 
possibilities of the old man's dish-washing de- 
vice, and a complete machine for a model, the 
casting patterns, a loft, some rough benches, 
a few tinners, and small advertisements in 
farm and household papers were the begin- 
nings of my industrial existence. 



"One day twelve years later I sat in my 
private office. From the outer general offices 
came the sound of half a hundred type- 
writers, a noise like that in a weaving room 
of a woolen mill; through the acreage of ad- 
joining buildings came the sound of packers' 
hammers, the roll of hand trucks, the chug 
of punch presses, the squeak of belts, the 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

rattle of casting tumblers, the roar of cupola 
blasts; the odor of sulphurous gases, hot oil, 
turpentine and nickel plating chemicals. My 
cashier entered the room and handed me a 
check for — well, a very large sum of money. 
The profits of the years previous had gone 
for development of the plant, and with the 
amount of my first dividend before me I 
realized that I had arrived. 

"I looked out of the window and through 
the cloud of smoke and steam that whirled 
past, I saw visions of events in those twelve 
years. I thought of the time that I slept 
in the shop, cooked my meals, worked at the 
bench by day and kept books and answered 
inquiries by night, — wonderful how my math- 
ematics improved when applied to my own 
dollars and cents: then the period where the 
demand exceeded the production, and my im- 
patience in the lack of capital for develop- 
ment; then patent litigation — patents are only 
a license to sue or get sued; then competition 
and the fight for the survival of the shrewd- 
est. 

10 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"Then, in my mental roaming I came unto 
the more distant past; the drab depot, the 
red elevator, the hog-chute, the saw-mill; the 
public square with the court-house in the cen- 
ter and surrounded by stores, the four streets 
in as many directions on which the abodes of 
man and beast became further apart till they 
were open roads with green pastures on either 
side. 

"Then the school, the old Fifth Reader, 
'The Death of Little Nell.' 

"My mother? She had gone. The old 
man — my benefactor — likewise. My father, 
I assumed, was still in the old town. 

"Would I go back? No: 'Guess you ain't 
ashamed to cry before me,' rang in my mem- 
ory. 

"To ease my conscience, though, I wrote, 
urged him to visit me and enclosed a draft 
for his transportation. 

"Early one morning a western limited 
rolled into the station. I was at the gate. He 
came across the tracks. Tall; white hair and 
beard; stovepipe hat, nap worn off in patches, 
shirt-pleats torn loose in places; scissors- 

11 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

trimmed cuffs; ravelled white waistcoat, ivory 
ball buttons yellow with age; Prince Albert 
coat faded and frayed, and thin-soled shoes 
'invisibly' patched many times. Straight of 
body, proud in spirit and full of years. 

"I opened a campaign of kindness by or- 
dering a good breakfast. Later we repaired 
to where high-class ready-to-wear clothes were 
sold, and for his immediate use I bought a 
fine twill Prince Albert suit. Then a dozen 
pleated shirts with cuffs attached, a half-dozen 
white waistcoats, two boxes of collars, one of 
string ties, a dozen cambric handkerchiefs, a 
silk hat, and buckhorn-handled cane. 

"At the jeweler's, solid gold collar and cuff 
buttons, a pair of gold nose-glasses, and a 
shirt-stud and a ring — both set with a dia- 
mond of moderate size. At the bank, a roll 
of new bills for his waistcoat pocket. 

"He retired to the hotel where I reside to 
array himself, and after he emerged from a 
barbershop — hair cut, beard trimmed and 
shaved, long silvery locks flowing from under 
his silk tile — pedestrians turned to look at 
him. 

12 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"During his stay I did all that energy and 
money could do for his happiness. In a few 
days, though, he became restless to return — I 
knew that in reality he wanted to exhibit his 
acquisitions in the home town, but he had been 
measured at a merchant tailor's for a black 
broadcloth suit and a light and a heavy 
weight overcoat — the latter with a cape fast- 
ening in front with elaborate braid frogs. I 
urged him to wait at least till these were done. 

"One morning they were delivered, and I 
found him before a mirror on a wardrobe 
door, in my room. He wore the broadcloth 
suit. By turning and twisting his body and 
craning his neck he examined the fit, smoothed 
out imaginary wrinkles and brushed off im- 
aginary bits of dust with the back of his hand. 

"I came up to him. 'Here, father,' I 'said, 
'this is something I had forgotten — it will 
complete the outfit.' 

"He opened a leather case and revealed a 
gold Swiss repeater watch. He examined it, 
pushed the spring, when its rapid little pulse 
chimed out the time — the hour — the moment 
that had arrived — 

13 



AFTER MANY YEARS 

"After many years. 

"His eyes filled with tears. He reached 
down deep into his coat-tail pocket, pulled out 
an old red bandana handkerchief and said: 

" 'My son, I'm going to cry.' 

"I was about to say: 'Guess you ain't 
ashamed to cry before me,' but — 

"I didn't." 



14 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE 
ATTIC 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE 
ATTIC 

SHE was about one generation removed 
from the type that wore black caps and 
did knitting. Grandma had houses 
and lands and crisp papers with green print- 
ing on them, lived in a big, old, box-corniced 
house with a daughter, some grandchildren, 
and a son-in-law who looked after grandma's 
business — in other words, he did nothing. 

Occasionally, grandma assumed control of 
matters domestic and spoiled her grandchil- 
dren at will. Of course the houses and lands 
and crisp papers with green printing on them 
were not the only reason she had her way, but 
they helped some. 

About the carol of the first robin, grandma 
would move uneasily in her chair and say: 
"There's all them old things up in that attic. 
If the house would ever ketch fire they would 
burn us all alive, and they ain't one uv 'em 
worth shucks. When I clean house I'm a 
great hand to begin up and go down." 

17 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE ATTIC 

Early in the morning a few days later 
would find her, dressed in her oldest gown, 
at the head of the attic stairs, chin in her 
hand and looking about in a bewildered way. 

Off in the corner her eye fell on an old 
disemboweled hair-cloth sofa with a cluster 
of peaches and grapes carved on the back. 

She stood silently contemplating it. "There 
were four chairs went with that sofa," she 
said to herself. "Yes, there they are," and 
dragging them out from obscurity she 
arranged them in a semi-circle. They were 
the first pieces of furniture of her married 
life, and she recalled the day when, with her 
husband, she selected them at old Ambrose 
Bolin's furniture and undertaking store down 
at Twinsburg. 

Then she turned to a black walnut bureau 
with a mirror on top — wavy, but as good as 
they had in its day. She wiped away the dust 
and looked at herself. Was it her first coun- 
tenance she saw reflected there? She opened 
the top drawer, took out a bundle of daguerre- 
otypes, wrapped in a strip of flannel, 
selected her own from the lot, held it to the 

18 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE ATTIC 

light and compared it to her present day self 
in the mirror. 

She recalled the time it was taken. A 
"likeness man" came through the country, 
stopped at their house and "took" the family 
for his board and keep. 

Grandma found a couple of feather pillows 
on the floor, thought a soaking rain would do 
them good, and threw them out the back win- 
dow into the yard below. 

Then she picked up a footstool; it was 
about to go likewise, when the ear at the side 
by which she held it came off and it fell to 
the floor with a loud clank and rattle. She 
recalled how she had made it to take to 
church — a cluster of seven fruit cans, filled 
with rocks and the whole covered with carpet. 

By the chimney was a little old trunk, like 
a stunted figure eight, covered with long goat 
fur, and on one end three initials formed of 
brass tacks. She remembered how she dis- 
liked to go anywhere with this particular 
trunk, for it always had a way of smelling in 
damp weather. 

Grandma lifted the lid, burrowed deep 
among the contents and pulled out a bundle 

19 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE ATTIC 

in a small shawl. From It she unrolled a tin 
rattle, a pair of child's shoes, and a dollar of 
1818 with a string attached through a hole. 

But why did Grandma have the child's 
shoes wrapped again in cotton batting? A 
bit of mud between the heel and Instep came 
off In her hand. They were the shoes he wore 
last time he went out. She fitted the bit of 
mud back in place again and as she did so a 
tear fell upon It. Then she looked at all the 
little dents In the dollar of 1 8 1 8 — they were 
the marks where he cut his teeth. She picked 
up the tin rattle, examined It minutely, and — 
and — yes, she blew the whistle in the handle 
end. This once distracting noise was now 
music In her memory. 

One of her grandchildren came to the head 
of the attic stairs to say that lunch was ready, 
but, of course. Grandma didn't want any 
lunch that day, and she buried her face deep 
in the trunk so the child would not see her 
weep. 

There were bundles and bundles of old let- 
ters in that same trunk tied with faded blue 
ribbon — letters with wax seals, before the 
days of envelopes or postage stamps — letters 

20 



HOW GRANDMA CLEANED THE ATTIC 

In a copper-plated hand and stilted style : 
"My Most Esteemed Friend. I take my pen 
in hand to state to you that I am in the best of 
health, and hope these few lines will find you 
enjoying the same God's blessing." Grandma 
opened bundle after bundle and letter after 
letter. 

It began to rain — the rain fell on the roof 
and Grandma's tears fell on the pages opened 
into things of long ago. 

About four o'clock Grandma put every- 
thing back in the trunk, closed the lid and 
came down stairs — her hands covered with 
dust and grime of time and her eyes red with 
weeping. 

She held out a few square inches of figured 
silk to her daughter and said: "Here is a 
piece of the vest your father wore the night 
we were married; I thought I might put it in 
my next quilt." 

And that's how Grandma cleaned the attic. 



ai 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 

GO into your native Indiana town and 
boyhood home after many years. 
On the corner of the two principal 
business streets is a large and comparatively 
new five-story brick building. 

There is a department store below and 
offices above. On this site there formerly 
stood a large wooden building, the first floor 
occupied by a rag, old-iron and general junk 
dealer who went about the country in a wagon, 
trading tin and glassware for various kinds 
of his plunder. 

The second floor contained the shop of Jake 
Kern, the town cobbler and shoemaker, who 
owned the property. 

His bench was in such a position as to com- 
mand a view of the street leading to the sta- 
tion, and here the editor of the country paper 
came to get his local items; for old Jake knew 
everybody that passed in and out of town. 

Although he followed shoemaking, he was 
an all-around mechanical genius, and in a 

25 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 

room behind the shop he had a standing 
bench and the tools of almost every trade. 

Once he made a little one-horsepower slide- 
valve engine and boiler. The cylinder and 
most of the parts were of Babbitt metal, and 
the fly-wheel, crank and eccentric were off an 
old sewing-machine. 

A veritable walking encyclopedia and for 
many years conducted a column in the county 
paper under the regular caption: "Things to 
Know." 

He came to the town when it was young 
and out of his savings bought this property 
when its value was small and price less. For 
many a long year he pegged away at his lit- 
tle bench, looked out of the window down 
the street that led to the station, tinkered in 
the room behind the shop, wrote his "Things 
to Know" for the county paper, and settled 
disputes for the loafers. 

Somebody struck gas and the town boomed. 
People remarked: "Rather a dingy old 
buildin' fer the best business corner in town," 
and then there were different rumors that 
different persons had bought it. But the old 

26 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 

man vigorously denied them all, pegged away 
at his little bench, looked out of the window 
down the street that led to the station, tink- 
ered in the room behind the shop, wrote his 
"Things to Know" for the county paper, and 
settled disputes for the loafers. 

One day a real-estate agent called at the 
shop; then an offer of fifteen thousand dollars, 
but the old man adroitly changed the subject, 
pegged away at the little bench, looked out of 
the window down the street that led to the 
station, tinkered in the room behind the shop, 
wrote his "Things to Know" for the county 
paper, and settled disputes for the loafers. 

Then came another offer of twenty-five 
thousand dollars, another of thirty thousand 
dollars. The influence of his two sons who 
owned a "shoe emporium" upon the Square 
was brought to bear. 

But the old man pegged on! 

Then came two raises of five thousand dol- 
lars — each — forty thousand dollars. The two 
sons opened a perfect broadside of arguments 
in favor of its acceptance, reinforced by other 
members of the family. 

The pegging stopped 1 

37 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 

A wagon drove up. The old man's bench 
and tools and trinkets were loaded in and 
carried away to the barn behind his house, 
while the loafers looked on in silence. 

The old man came down town every day, 
looked at the old building as it was being 
razed, stood at the guard-rail, and watched 
the men and teams with scrapers digging the 
cellar and the masons laying concrete and 
stone foundation-walls. Then he came down 
only occasionally; when he did it was by 
another street from where the old shop had 
stood. 

His rheumatism hurt more than usual. His 
column in the county paper stopped. He quit 
reading books, took to his bed, and his 
daughters read the papers to him; later he 
only asked what was in them, and finally 
merely for the weather indications. 

Occasionally some of the old loafers from 
the old shoe-shop would come around, sit by 
the bed awhile in silence, and walk out with 
their heads bowed down. 

There is no more pegging at the little 
bench. No more looking out the window 
down the street that leads to the station. 

28 



A TRAGEDY OF PROGRESS 

There is no more tinkering in the room 
behind the shop. There are no more "Things 
to Know" in the county paper. There are no 
more disputes to settle for the loafers. The 
old man has gone. 

And forty thousand dollars are in the bank. 



29 



BILL'S DAY OFF 



BILL'S DAY OFF 

BILL was a healthy young hulk — a loco- 
motive fireman. By a circumlocution, 
all the kicks of slow train service 
resulting from America's industrial activity 
were heaped on poor Bill's shoulders. The 
consignee kicked to the shipper, the shipper 
kicked to the general freight agent, the gen- 
eral freight agent kicked to the superintendent 
of motive power, the superintendent of motive 
power kicked to the master mechanic, the 
master mechanic to the roundhouse boss, the 
roundhouse boss to the engineer, who in turn 
threw it all on poor Bill, who shoveled coal 
harder and harder, and growled and growled. 

It had been a long time since anybody had 
dared think of a day off, and Bill continued to 
heave coal into "529," "the leaky old kettle," 
as he called it, while he growled and growled. 

Bill growled to the engineer about his day 
off, and to the other firemen, wipers and 
hostlers. One day as Bill climbed off old 
"529," the roundhouse boss happened along. 

33 



bill's day off 

"Say, Cap," Bill yelled, *'how about my 
day off?" 

"Never you mind, you're on," returned the 
boss. And Bill heaved coal harder and 
harder, and growled and growled. 

Nerved by his first approach, Bill kicked 
about his day off every time he saw the 
roundhouse boss, and then began hunting 
him up. 

The date of Bill's day off was finally fixed, 
but as he climbed in bed the night before, a 
messenger came with the intelligence that the 
"extra's" wife's grandmother had died, and 
he must take his run out that day, so Bill 
climbed on old "529," shoveled coal, and 
growled. 

A week later the promised day came. Bill 
rose at the usual time, donned a blue-striped 
stiff shirt, celluloid collar, and a pair of 
round, rattling cuffs of the same material, red 
necktie, blue corkscrew cloth suit, with spring- 
bottom pants, and a pair of extension-soled 
shoes. 

After breakfast he went across the street 
to a one-chair barber shop that smelled of 
cinnamon and clove oil. 



BILL S DAY OFF 

"What's the matter, Bill?" asked the bar- 
ber. 

"Got my day off," replied Bill. 

After a shave, he remained a while look- 
ing at the pictures in The Police News, then — 
his face covered with barber's powder and 
towel lint — walked over to the roundhouse, 
took a newspaper from his pocket, spread It 
out on a greasy pine board bench, and sat 
down. 

"What's the matter. Bill?" said a passing 
wiper. 

"Got a day off." Bill pulled out a yellow 
paper sack from his pocket and "stoked" upon 
a combination smoking and chewing tobacco; 
examined his finger nails, as large as tea- 
spoon bowls, cleaned them with a two-pound 
jack-knife, which he concluded needed sharp- 
ening. After expectorating on a sandstone 
window sill near by, he whetted his knife till 
12 o'clock, then started for the boarding- 
house. 

"What's the matter, Bill; you're all dressed 
up?" said the boarders in a chorus. 

"Got my day off," he replied. After tuck- 
ing a fringed red napkin down his collar, he 

35 



BILLYS DAY OFF 

Stabbed a piece of fat cold pork with a two- 
pronged bone-handle fork. 

In the afternoon Bill returned to his place 
on the roundhouse bench and began whittling, 
as he wondered how "529," the "old leaky 
kettle," was getting along. At 3 o'clock he 
consulted his watch. "I was goin' to the op'ry 
this afternoon, but guess it's too late," he 
remarked to a passing hostler. Bill pulled a 
well-packed, greasy and tattered song-book 
from his hip pocket, containing the words of 
the latest comic and sentimental songs, and 
began humming through his nose something 
about "Mother, Dear," "Gentle Eyes of 
Blue," and "I'd Leave My Happy Home for 
You." About 6 o'clock Bill went home. 

Amid the dark steam monsters of the road, 
the clank of hammers, the roar of blasts, and 
escape of steam; the smell of hot oil, the gas 
and smoke of the coal from portable repair 
forges, Bill had spent his day off. 



36 



JUST ONE MORNING 



JUST ONE MORNING 

IT was dawn. A single figure appeared in 
a deserted down-town street whistling in 
loud, bird-like notes as he advanced 
through the purple mist of morning. He 
stopped before a certain closed door among 
the many along the way, took from his pocket 
a key that unfolded like a jack-knife, inserted 
it, and, as the door opened, there issued into 
the street a great hot blast of air heavily laden 
with the blended odors of stale beer, stale 
cigar smoke, cocktail bitters, lemons, mint, 
dry oil from the floor linoleum and toilet room 
disinfectant. 

The saloon porter — for that's who it was — 
disappeared through the interior darkness. 
There was the clanking of brass cuspidors be- 
ing piled one above the other; the rattle of 
buckets, broom and mop handles; a jet of 
water resounded on a bucket bottom; the 
porter, hatless and coatless, began the day's 
duties by mopping the floor, and soon the 

39 



JUST ONE MORNING 

smell of steaming suds united with the many 
other odors, all in a grand rush to the street. 
The screen door spring creaked, and a 
seedy little man in thin-soled shoes appeared. 
With a quick step he pattered to the rail and 
gave several husky bark-like coughs. The 
porter looked up from his mopping, wiped his 
hands on his trousers sides and went behind 
the bar. The little man nodded. The porter 
set out the bottle and glasses, the little man 
poured out a "rimmer," raised it with trem- 
bling caution, downed it with one backward 
nod of his head which wagged from side to 
side as the liquor touched his palate; and a 
tremor-like shudder descended his fragile 
frame, which ceased in a series of nasal con- 
vulsions as he lowered the glass and blindly 
reached for the water. After a long, deep 
breath the little man laid down a dime, which 
the porter did not put in the register drawer; 
wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, 
he pattered out the door. 

The porter had just resumed his mopping 
when the screen door creaked again; but this 
time he merely looked up, for the newcomer 
walked directly behind the bar, rolled his hat 

40 



JUST ONE MORNING 

up in his coat, placed them in one of the many 
little cupboards under the back bar, opened a 
small drawer directly above it, with a corner 
gnawed out by the rats, untangled a comb 
from a string that attached a key to a billet of 
wood and arranged some very thin, black, 
vaseline-shining, strap-like locks over the top 
of his very small, peaked, bald head. Ex- 
amining his fingers, which, in size and color, 
suggested Bologna sausages, he picked a 
lemon knife from under the bar and began 
manicuring his nails — the smallest as large as 
a teaspoon bowl. His own toilet complete 
he began that of the bar, which consisted of 
taking the glasses, one by one, from the back 
bar, polishing each with a towel and placing 
them temporarily on the front bar. 

The screen door gave a prolonged creak, 
and a young man in well-made clothes and 
soiled linen stood just inside surveying the 
interior and its operations. He elevated his 
nose and instinctively turned his head towards 
the fresh air as the many odors met him. He 
braved them, though, walked over to the bar 
with a weak-kneed tread, leaneci against the 
railing, unfolded a morning paper, glanced 

41 



JUST ONE MORNING 

over the head lines, and attempted to fix his 
heavy, glassy eyes on the body type. 

The bartender smiled — a half-pitying smile 
— and asked if he would have something. 
The young man moaned softly, looked down, 
and, with a trembling hand, scratched a bit of 
yellow of an egg that had lodged on one of 
his coat buttons. The bartender suggested a 
nice "Martini." The young man gave an- 
other soft moan, took a sack of granulated 
tobacco from his side coat pocket, a cigarette 
paper from another side coat pocket, 
smoothed the wrinkles and blew on its edge, 
tremblingly opened the sack, poured the paper 
full of tobacco after forming it into a little 
trough, drew the puckering strings into his 
teeth with a very long parched tongue after 
much unsteady wagging of that member, 
closed the sack, tremblingly rolled the tobacco, 
sealed it by again extending his long parched 
tongue, placed the finished product between 
his teeth, lit it, blew a great cloud of smoke 
over the bar, brushed off the tobacco crumbs 
lodged in the wrinkles of his vest and then 
there were a few feeble pulsations of con- 
versation: "Sin is luring," said the young 

42 



JUST ONE MORNING 

man. "By sin I mean a breach of the laws 
of nature — nev-er gives what it promises — 
lures you and then lets you down with a 
bump." 

"Oh, I think you'll feel better after a little 
whiskey and absinthe," interrupted the bar- 
tender. 

The young man nodded and moaned again 
feebly, the decoction was set before him, he 
downed it and opened the inside page of the 
paper, reading more head lines, waiting for 
the stimulant to percolate his system. The 
body type became more and more distinct, he 
waded through several news items, and with 
some animation called to the bartender to 
"shoot up" another. 

By this time the porter had reached the 
front door with his mopping and numberless 
dirty water rivulets raced over the stone side- 
walk, running into each other and around one 
another all in seeming emulation to first reach 
the gutter, leaving their path strewn with 
cotton mop ravelings, swollen cigar butts, 
lemon rinds, corks, burnt matches and Bo- 
logna skins from the day before free lunch. 
The porter swept them up, wiped his hands 

43 



JUST ONE MORNING 

on his trousers sides, took a general survey 
of the sky and streets, smiled at the Polish 
scrub-woman next door, who looked at him, 
grinned, remarked something in her own 
tongue to another scrub-woman next to that, 
which resulted in a peal of laughter from the 
latter, and the porter, having no defense, 
gathered his implements and went inside. 

The screen door creaked again. An 
Italian entered carrying a basket covered 
with a wrinkled and cracked oilcloth. Leav- 
ing the day's supply of lemons and oranges, 
he departed. 

Next came the milkman, dressed in a 
leather coat, carrying an unlighted cigar butt 
between his teeth and a dented can in his 
hand. 

The mint gardener, the lunch meat man, 
the pretzel man, the bread man, the morning 
paper boy, all followed in quick succession. 

There was a lull. The porter came in with 
a napkin covered tray containing the bar- 
tender's breakfast from a neighboring restau- 
rant. The young man in the well-made 
clothes and soiled linen had just imbibed his 
fourth whiskey and absinthe and was begin- 

44 



JUST ONE MORNING 

ning to "take notice." He observed the bar- 
tender despatching each item of the meal 
placed before him. The cereal and cream, 
the bacon, the eggs fried soft, and "lookin' 
up," the coffee, and even the burned and 
black potatoes fried heavy in grease. The 
young man at last folded his paper and 
started out with the remark that he guessed 
he would go over and at least see if he 
couldn't "worry down" an egg. 

A gaunt figure of a man entered by the 
rear, in wet boots, and a buggy apron covered 
the front of his legs — a carriage washer in a 
neighboring livery stable. He carried a half- 
gallon fruit can with a jagged top hammered 
down to a smooth rim, which he deposited on 
the bar and held up a nickel with one of his 
pink, water-wrinkled hands. With his foam- 
ing can he departed with a passing word to 
the porter, who by that time was shaving up 
a block of ice in a wash tub at the back door. 

A very fat clerk from the china store next 
door came in, laid down a dime, nodded to 
the bartender who broke an egg in a tall 
glass, picked a bit of shell out with a long- 
handled spoon, poured it full of beer and set 

45 



JUST ONE MORNING 

it before the fat clerk, who swallowed it at 
a gulp and a final drain, and wiping his 
mouth on the back of his hand, he rushed out. 

Some stoop-shouldered young men in faded 
clothes, broken shoes, and home-made shirts, 
came in one by one, selected morning papers 
from the front of the bar and took seats at 
the tables in the rear. The porter remarked 
something about "boarders" to the bartender 
and concluded it was about time to get lunch. 
The stoop-shouldered young men looked up 
from their papers and followed him with 
their eyes as he went behind the screen, and 
soon the odors of freshly cut Bologna and 
bread, onions and the steam from stewing 
meat filled the air. 

A group of portly men sauntered in — con- 
tractors interspersed with a politician or two. 
The first at the bar snapped down a silver 
dollar and ordered whiskey. Some of the 
others consulted their watches, but all agreed 
it was about their time and nodded repetition. 
With that finished another round was ordered 
— then another. The conversation grew 
louder and louder. Others joined them. 
Suddenly the rattle of a dice box was heard. 

46 



JUST ONE MORNING 

The morning sun shone through the front 
windows, over the screen and glistened among 
the newly polished glasses on the back bar. 

Lunch was ready. More men came in. 
There was an almost continual ring of the 
cash register bell; the rapping on the bar of 
those impatient to be served; the hum of 
many voices; occasional hoarse laughs; the 
clinking of glasses; the rattle of plates and 
forks on the lunch counter; the room filled 
with fresh blue cigar smoke — and the saloon 
was awake. 



47 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

MULO PLACE was a little street of 
little lots on which there were 
little houses occupied by little 
parents with little babies. Mulo Place was 
nestled away on the outskirts of the city, at 
the end of a track Y where the cars turned 
with many toned singing squeaks to go back 
to town, amid the weeded commons, a wooded 
pasture and off from and surrounded by 
longer and wider streets of wider lots on 
which there were wider houses occupied by 
older parents with older children. 

All the houses along Mulo Place were new, 
the odors of newly turned earth, freshly laid 
sod, drying cement of the walks, hardening 
paint and creosote shingle stain all formed a 
procession of smells propelled by and mixed 
with breezes and odors from the neighboring 
weeded commons, the wooded pasture, which 
blew in, and around, and over all the little 
houses along the way. 

51 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

To Stand at the head of this little street 
and look down the row of houses on either 
side, in their newness and uniqueness, was to 
imagine thern all soldiers of protest, standing 
with drawn arms, against the old and con- 
ventional in home building : There were the 
cement covered houses with green roofs, green 
blinds and green strips nailed to the plaster 
covered surfaces on which green vines twined; 
there were brown shingled houses where 
golden glow blossomed in the window and 
veranda boxes; there were silver gray stained 
houses with red roofs, — some had sodded 
terraces up to the floor line, some were ori- 
ental brick to the second story line, and then 
there were bricked floor and arbor roofed 
porches, all of which, in spite of the wide 
variety of expressions, indicated beyond ques- 
tion of a doubt that all the occupants of all 
the many little houses along Mulo Place were 
not only on the best of terms in house build- 
ing ideas, but socially as well. 

That soft, damp, clear-aired darkness pe- 
culiar to the last of morning's first quarter 
in late Spring hung over Mulo Place and 
cast all the houses into dark blue gray with 

52 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

only the roofs and chimney tops defined 
against the long narrow streaks of first dawn 
in the eastern sky. 

A cool breeze blew. Night birds hovered 
about and gave their squeaking cry. The soft 
pulsation of a locomotive on a distant rail- 
road, increasing as it approached near dis- 
tance; a blast of the whistle in three toned 
chimes; the rush of cars, and then all subsid- 
ing into quietness with the train in the far 
distance. Then complete silence; broken in 
a moment by a carol from a robin in the 
wooded pasture. 

A far distant cock crowed, a middle distant 
cock answered, closely followed by one in the 
near distance. 

All was quiet again. 

The dawn breeze blew. 

A far distant babe's cry came from No. 24 
Mulo Place, a light quickly appeared in the 
window, and a night-gowned and pajamaed 
figure passed and repassed. 

A middle distant babe's cry from No. 16 
Mulo Place answered that of No. 24, closely 
followed by one in near distance from No. 9 ; 
lights also quickly appeared in the windows 

53 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

with the passing and repassing of more night- 
gowned and pajamaed figures. 

One by one the crying babes were silenced, 
lights disappeared and all was quiet again. 

A rumbling wagon turned the corner into 
Mulo Place and stopped mid-way down the 
row. A rubber-booted and overalled man got 
out with a lantern; there was a clinking of 
glass in the back of the wagon and the driver 
began weaving around and back of all the 
houses leaving bottles of milk on each back 
porch. 

The dawn streaks grew longer, wider, 
lighter and became fringed with gold. 

The milk man drove out of one end of the 
street and the paper boy came in the other 
on a bicycle, folding and throwing the morn- 
ing paper, hitting every front door on either 
side of the row as he went along. 

The whole sky grew light. 

The last owl car singingly squeaked on the 
track Y as it turned back to town. 

A matted-haired Persian tabby cat shrink- 
ingly skurried across the street and disap- 
peared into the basement window of a brown 
shingle house, which had evidently been built 

54 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

and the color scheme entuned to the cat, but 
this particular cat, like many a pet along 
Mulo Place, had fallen into neglect by the 
advent of a new baby. 

The cool breezes of early morning died 
down. 

The full glowing sun peered over the trees 
of the wooded pasture and the dew on the 
lawn grass sparkled in the full light of the 
new born day. 

A front door opened and a young man In 
a bath robe and with uncombed hair peered 
out, saw no one about, stepped on the porch, 
picked up the morning paper, opened It to the 
sporting page and hurried back into the house 
again. 

The hum of a lawn mower was heard far 
down the way. 

Back doors opened one by one, house- 
gowned young women came out, took in the 
full milk bottles and set out empty ones. 

Soon the popping of frying eggs was heard, 
and the odors of cooking ham and bacon 
joined those of newly turned earth, freshly 
laid sod, drying cement, hardening paint, cre- 
osote shingle stain, the weeded common, the 

55 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

wooded pasture, and freshly cut grass, and 
all the multitude of mingled odors were car- 
ried in and around and over all the little 
houses of Mulo Place on the fresh air of 
morning. 

The singing squeak on the track Y became 
more frequent; the distant roar of the city's 
traffic became more distinct and heavy. 

The young men came out of their front 
doors one by one, — well groomed fellows who 
still patronized the college counter of the 
ready-to-wear clothing stores. Each stood for 
a moment on the sidewalk, looking up at 
their houses, waving adieu and throwing ca- 
resses at their wives, who stood with babes in 
arms at the windows; each took a farewell 
survey at his house and yard with the air of 
possession, and each turned reluctantly and 
hurried off to their day of work, and their 
little families and their little homes on Mulo 
Place remained in mind all day as the main- 
spring of their efforts. 

■ ■ 

Now, as it will have been observed, the 
principal industry of Mulo Place was the 
infant industry. 

56 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

The stork had alighted, or was expected to 
light, on all the little houses along the way, 
but two. 

The social-intellectual life of Mulo Place 
had started out with regular meetings for the 
reading and discussion of Frank Stoddard's 
travel lectures, but as advents were expected 
or came, the world of travel interest grad- 
ually congested and became bounded on the 
North by layettes and maternity gowns, on 
the East by the best doctor, on the South by 
infant foods, and on the West by teething 
and colic cures. 

In fact, not to have experienced mother- 
hood, or to expect to experience it within a 
very short period, was to soon be drowned 
out of the conversation on Mulo Place. 

The young matron of No. 8 Mulo Place 
came out on her porch in a sweeping cap 
and broom in hand. 

The matron of No. 7, across the way, came 
out on the walk with a perambulator and the 
two neighbors greeted each other with the 
merriest of good mornings. 

57 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

The matrons in No. 6 and No. 9 hearing 
voices came out on their porches and more 
merry greetings followed. 

A plainly dressed, middle aged woman 
turned into Mulo Place and came along the 
row. 

The quartette of young matrons followed 
her with their eyes in silence until she dis- 
appeared on the porch of No. 13. 

"Who's that, I wonder?" said No. 6 and 
No. 9 in duet. 

"I don't know," said No. 8, "but she came 
along here at this same time yesterday morn- 
ing." 

"Yes," said No. 7, "and she wore the same 
hat that she had on this morning." 

"I wonder if it could be their trained 
nurse," said No. 6. 

"No," replied No. 9, "it surely isn't time 
for that." 

Further consideration of the woman who 
wore the same hat two days in succession was 
prevented by the appearance of a huge, red 
seven-passenger automobile turning into the 
little street, a large fat man with down- 

58 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

drooping jowls in the back seat who looked 
like the caricature of a trust magnate. 

The equipage stopped in front of No. 21. 
"Why," exclaimed No. 9, "that surely isn't 
the doctor, and it isn't time for her to go to 
the hospital, is it?" 

Any further questions as to the fat man 
and the purpose of the automobile in front 
of No. 21 was interrupted by a tall, willowy 
blonde young woman in a raincoat, highly 
made up, who ran down the steps of No. 10, 
clacked along the cement pavement with her 
high-heeled shoes as she rushed past, and the 
front porch quartette bit their lips and gave 
forth an audible hiss as they inhaled between 
their upper front teeth and lower lips. 

Now, the tall blonde was one of the two 
drones in the human hive of replenishing the 
earth along Mulo Place; hers was one of the 
two houses along the row where the stork had 
not alighted, and where that particular bird 
was not expected to light, and the mere nod 
with which she was greeted by the quartette 
indicated the spirit of bees toward a drone, 
or the attitude of a union worker toward a 
non-union fellow worker in the same trade. 

59 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

No. 10 hurried up the steps of No. 3, — 
the house of the other non-union worker. 

No. 6 broke silence by an undertone re- 
mark across the porch to No. 8, — something 
about being afraid of spoiling her figure. 

"It isn't going to rain, is it?" said the 
matron of No. 9, looking into the sky, "and 
did you notice that she had on a raincoat?" 

"Yes," said No. 6, "did she have on a 
maternity skirt under — " 

The question was answered by the tall 
blonde rushing down the steps of No. 3, the 
raincoat on her arm, — it was just one non- 
union worker going over to have her dress 
hooked up by the other non-union worker. 

The morning grew warm. 

The ice man appeared around the corner, 
and the front porch quartette disappeared 
into their houses to rearrange the food in 
their refrigerators. 

The vegetable man quickly followed the ice 
man ; his array of garden truck displayed in 
an open wagon, — a veritable riot and conges- 
tion of color in variety, brilliancy, and in 
shades and tones and textures. 

60 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

The fruit man came bearing the perfume of 
the tropics in the path of his wagon to blend 
with the new house odors and those of the 
weeded commons and wooded pasture. 

The sun shone down in the full light of 
morning and a warm, moist, yielding vapor 
arose from the earth. 

All the doors and windows of all the little 
houses along Mulo Place were open. 

The clear high notes of a canary filled the 
air. 

A hen in a neighboring back yard sang the 
song that told her little world that it would 
be one egg richer very soon. Another hen 
clucked and some baby chicks peeped. 

And the sun poured down in the full born 
day of Spring, — down onto the earth of all 
the little lots of Mulo Place, and the moist, 
yielding air, teeming with life and growth, 
fanned in the windows of all the little houses, 
seemingly saying to all the little occupants : 

"Go outside and partake more of me, you 
in the Spring of life, for what I blow into 
your windows is but a sample; I am free, — I 
am yours and you are mine. Come, breathe 
of me, and let us be one!" 

61 



THE AWAKENING OF MULO PLACE 

And all the mothers to be came out onto 
the porches and into the yards and breathed 
of the Life of Now and dreamed of the Life 
To Be. 

And the mothers that were came also and 
strolled in the open, along the sidewalks, 
wheeling their babes, now pushing their little 
conveyances from behind, now walking before 
them, now bending over and peering down 
into the faces of their reproductions and 
smiling, — a smile that only woman who has 
listened for and heard the command of nature 
is glorified to smile. 

Mulo Place was awake. 



62 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

IN the search for matter to supply the in- 
sistent presses and the expectant reader, 
"we" go into "our" intellectual hayloft, 
look in odd corners, stir around unused bins 
and finally pound on the hay in the hopes that 
an idea will fly out. 

Of course, "we" and "our" is in an edito- 
rial sense; for wasn't it the great and good 
Bill Nye who said that there were just two 
people in this world entitled to refer to them- 
selves as "we" — one was the editor and the 
other a fellow with a tapeworm? 

"Our" idea barn isn't bursting with plenty, 
but in the mow of musty and cobwebbed mem- 
ories, one of the more picturesque of bucolic 
characters and institutions is recalled — the 
barber and his shop. 

He was about one generation removed from 
members of his trade who pulled teeth and 
kept leeches — pulled teeth with a wrench 
somewhat resembling a huge door key. 

65 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

In the parlance of the business it was a 
"three-chair shop" — on one side of the public 
square. The sidewalk grade had been raised 
several times since the erection of the old 
building and you had to walk down several 
steps to get into it. 

The operating chairs were of black walnut, 
with arms coming down at the sides, carved in 
the form of snakes, meeting the seat, coiling 
up again and the open-mouthed heads project- 
ing beyond. The seats and backs were up- 
holstered in rough carpet of flower-garden 
design. The wire spiral spring ends cut 
through in places and care had to be taken 
in sitting down that you were not stabbed in 
the bosom of the rear elevation. 

On the wall in front of these chairs a wavy 
mirror reflected a patron's countenance to 
mumps-like proportions. Further down this 
wall a box, divided into pigeonholes contain- 
ing a dozen or more mugs with the names of 
prominent citizens in gilt Old English letters, 
together with pictured objects, emblematic of 
their business or profession. For instance : 
Peleg Hostetter, the liveryman, a horse collar 
and a couple of whips; Zachariah Dye, the 

66 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

druggist, a mortar and pestle; Conrad Gizler, 
the butcher, a steer's head with a meat saw, 
cleaver and knife arranged around it; Jake 
Kern, the shoemaker, a boot, and Steve 
Hankins, the undertaker, a scythe and sheaf 
of wheat. 

On a partition separating the front and 
back of the shop, a framed sign read: "If 
you can't raise ten cents, raise whiskers." 
There was an immense pile of hair behind this 
partition — almost enough to make a mattress. 

In the middle of the shop stood a marble- 
top table on which were several tattered and 
torn numbers of the Police News and Police 
Gazette, a "Hood's Rimester," "Funny Sto- 
ries by Funny Drummers, or How to Enter- 
tain Your Customers," and a bottle of ink 
and some blue ruled writing paper. 

The barber, a tall thin man, had a mass 
of kinky, oily hair in which he carried his 
combs when at work; large romantic brown 
eyes, skin shriveled and dark, suggesting a 
raisin, and his mustache had a melancholy 
droop. He wore a brown velvet coat and 
vest trimmed at the edges and pockets with 

67 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

wide silk braid; lavender pants, red socks and 
patent leather dancing pumps tied with wide 
ribbons. 

As "Hood's Rimester" indicated, he fre- 
quently dallied with the muses. On a well 
known railroad wreck near the town he once 
"laid" a "pome" of which the following is an 
extract : 

"And in among the wreck I see 
A man pinioned down by the knee, 
And hear him calmly for to say: 
'Cut, oh, cut, my leg away!' " 

Then, on the long summer afternoons he 
sat back in one of the "operating" chairs, 
thrummed a guitar and sang love songs 
through his nose. 

Although a three-chair shop, the proprietor 
was the only regular barber. During the rush, 
Saturday nights, he called in a scroll sawyer 
from the planing mill. This fellow's middle 
finger of the left hand was bent down stiff 
to a right angle at the second joint. The end 
had been mashed and a long nail grew out 
of the end, which made it a great inducement 
to be shaved by him ; for in mussing up your 

68 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

hair previous to combing, it usually got 
tangled in this nail and several hanks were 
pulled out by the roots. 

Like the proprietor, this scroll-sawyer bar- 
ber was musically inclined. He played the 
piano around at dances and "doubled" with 
a yellow clarinet — until he got two more 
fingers sawed off, then he retired to "slip 
horn" in the band. 

A peculiar circumstance in the loss of these 
fingers : One day while working at his saw- 
table he made a slip and cut off one of them. 
Of course he laid up for a week and returned 
one Monday morning. All his shopmates 
were glad to see him and gathered around 
while he explained how it happened. He 
started the saw, picked up a piece of board 
and placed it on the saw-table by way of illus- 
tration — well, he cut off another finger ! 

They had a peculiar system of apprentice- 
ship in these country shops. For instance: 
During the rush time, when all three chairs 
were full, the lathering, washing and wiping 
of faces was done by the cub. By the time a 
"patient's" beard was soaped, and rubbed for 
softening, the regular barber would be 

69 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

through scraping a previous patient and the 
cub would wash and wipe the latter's face. 
In this way they kept moving from chair to 
chair. 

They didn't have much water in these 
country shops — the only supply being from 
a copper tank on the back of the stove — warm 
in winter and cold in summer. The barber 
would take a rag, walk over to the tank, 
turn on the faucet, squeeze it out on the way 
back to the chair and drops of water would 
race over the dusty floor like mercury or shot. 
No one ever used water on his hair — they 
vaselined it — roached it up in front like the 
curl of a shaving from a jack-plane. 

The barber's wife was the first woman in 
the town to bleach her hair. She dressed in 
"changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, 
and the wimples and the crisping pins," as de- 
scribed in that monumental editorial on van- 
ity, the third chapter of Isaiah. All in a com- 
bination of colors that fairly screamed. 
Neither choice of manner nor expression, she 
used to come in the shop, sit down, place her 
feet upon a gas-pipe railing along the front 
window and eye-ball passersby. 

70 



THE COUNTRY BARBER SHOP 

One Saturday afternoon the shop was full, 
the barber's wife in her favorite position, 
when a woman, the banker's wife, came along 
the sidewalk. She followed — eyed her as far 
as possible and finally said, under her breath: 
"O hell, that woman makes me tired." 

Her husband, working at the first chair 
near her, laid down his brush, comb and scis- 
sors and began letting go prolonged shouts 
of laughter, bending over at each shout and 
slapping his legs. Finally he subsided, started 
to work again and after catching his breath, 
shook his head in defiance and said with a 
snicker: "That's Ell, she always says jist 
what she thinks." 



71 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

HE was old — very old. He should 
have been at home, in dressing 
gown and slippers, smoking a long 
pipe, and telling stories of things of long 
ago to a complete circle of grandchildren 
about an arm-chair. 

Instead, though, he trudged along the dis- 
trict where the flowing tide of business meets 
the ebbing tide of grassy lawn in the city's 
best residence district of by-gone days. 

He wore a shiny brown Prince Albert 
coat, very thin shoes, and a rumpled plush 
cap, under which long tufts of white hair 
protruded. His pinched and drawn face as 
white almost as his long unkempt beard. 

He stood still for a moment and rested on 
a heavy blackthorn cane. Suddenly he raised 
his haunted hollow eyes and made a quick 
survey of the houses along the way. 

A big automobile went by. The old man 
gave it a following glance, dropped his eyes, 

75 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

fell to meditating, and muttered something 
about how fast the world went by these days. 

Pulling off a home-knit mitten, he exposed 
a hand with large protruding blue veins over 
the back like rivulets on a map. Then he took 
from his pocket a coarse cotton handkerchief, 
wadded it to the size of a walnut and wiped 
the water from his eyes. 

Evening was on. With another quick 
glance at all sides, the old man tottered up to 
one of the gates along the way, grasped the 
iron pickets with his face close up and peered 
through at a large square brick house set far 
back in the yard. 

The windows were all dark; one of the 
blinds, with broken slats, hung limp on one 
hinge. Water dripped from the cornice, and 
many a year had passed since it had seen a 
painter's brush. 

There was a fountain in the foreground, its 
basin filled with earth, and green moss cov- 
ered its stone coping; brown patches here 
and there over the lawn marked the spot 
where flowers had once grown ; a cast iron dog 
near the gravel walk had a piece of its tail 
broken off and one ear was entirely gone. 

76 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

The old man noticed an iron seat under a 
tree in the middle of the yard, pushed the 
gate open, when it gave a loud creak, as if it 
sang the funeral chant of grandeurs past. 

Though cold, raw and damp, he walked 
over to this seat, and with many groans, 
grunts, and cracking of joints he sat down. 

He looked into the heavens. Great white 
clouds drifted past like a procession of phan- 
toms. The autumn winds blew, and the fir 
trees in the yard swung and swayed like great 
funeral plumes for the death of summer past. 

The old man sat looking up into the tree 
branches above him. Suddenly his cheek was 
fanned by a warm breeze. 

He looked around him. 

The fountain was playing, flowers bloomed 
in every bed, the bit of tail and the ear had 
grown on the iron dog, the lawn was trimmed, 
and appeared like green velvet. All was 
summer. 

The house, newly painted, had a June rose 
in full bloom climbing around the entrance. 
A light appeared at one of the windows — 
then another, then still another, till they shone 

77 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

from cellar to attic, casting their rays on the 
green lawn. 

He looked again. There were figures of 
men and women passing inside. Groups of 
twos and threes came up the gravel walk. A 
violin was being tuned inside the house. He 
arose and followed the people along the walk. 
At the entrance he remembered his old clothes, 
but looked down only to discover that they 
were all new — all new — a long claw-hammer 
coat, ruffled shirt-front, stock collar and 
elaborately figured silk low-cut vest. 

He thought of his old worn shoes. But he 
looked down again only to discover that they 
were also new — not shoes at all, but patent- 
leather dancing pumps, tied with wide black 
ribbons. 

A servant ushered him inside. He followed 
the other guests up the broad stairway. An- 
other servant showed him to the dressing- 
room, and took his tall stovepipe hat and 
light cape overcoat. 

He looked in the dressing mirror. His hair 
was no longer white but brown. He had no 
beard, but was clean shaven, and there were 
no wrinkles in his face. He was young. 

78 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

He Stood there and surveyed himself, first 
one side then the other in the mirror. He 
spent much time in arranging the minutest 
corner of his stock, brushing his clothes, and 
put in a half hour or more arranging his 
curling locks, that fairly reeked in scented 
bear's oil. He was the last man in the room, 
the others having gone below. He washed the 
bear's oil from his hands and descended the 
stairs. 

The rooms were covered with canvas, and 
brilliantly lighted by lamps and candles, and 
filled with guests. There were odors of burn- 
ing oil, newly ironed linen, freshly cut old 
garden flowers and lavender. 

He stood there on the elevation of the last 
step of the stairs. Partners were being taken 
for the first dance. The music started, and 
men, dressed like himself, and young women 
gowned in old organdie, circled in and out and 
about the rooms. 

His eyes followed a certain girl, dressed in 
blue; she was tall and willowy, had white 
skin, red hair, combed down at the sides and 
over her ears like the scroll on the cap of an 
Ionic column. 

79 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

Their eyes met. She left the man with 
whom she was waltzing — yes, left him in the 
middle of the dance, and came tripping to 
him. She came nearer and nearer, grasped 
his hand, and then still nearer — so near that a 
few stray hairs on her temples touched his 
cheek. So near that when she looked into his 
eyes he saw his own face reflected in her 
pupils. 

She grasped his dance program hanging to 
a coat button by a cord and wrote her own 
name after every dance — yes, every dance. 

He stepped down to the floor from the 
stairs on which he was standing, out the front 
door, and the young woman on his arm. Yes, 
it was too warm for dancing — yes, too warm, 
and they strolled through the grounds. 

At last they sat down on the iron seat. 
They were very close to each other; they 
looked into the trees, the moonlight sifted 
through the foliage upon their upturned faces. 

He was about to lay his head against her, 
but thought of his bear's oiled hair. He ar- 
ranged a white silk handkerchief on her 
shoulder. She made no protest, but only 

80 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD MAN 

looked Into his eyes. He leaned over to rest 
his head there — 

He fell over on the bench. He awoke with 
a start, and looked around him. The place 
beside him on the bench was vacant. 

He stood up and looked around again. It 
was winter. 

The house was dark, dingy, and water 
dripped from the cornice; the fountain was 
still, earth filled the basin, and green moss 
covered the coping; long frost-killed grass 
covered the yard, brown patches marked the 
beds where flowers had grown, the ear and 
tail were off the cast iron dog, and all was 
desolation and dilapidation. The old man 
limbered his legs, stiff from cold, walked out 
of the tall iron gate which gave a particularly 
loud, deathknell-like creak after him and dis- 
appeared into the darkness of the night. 



81 



"WHAT TIME SHE BURNT" 



"WHAT TIME SHE BURNT" 

A Tale of Dingman's Ferry 

ONCE upon a day the good people of 
Dingman's Ferry, Pike County, In- 
diana, had a sum of money in their 
common treasury over that necessary for the 
running of village government. 

There was a division in the town board as 
to the advisability of buying a town clock or 
a new fire-bell. 

They had a bell on the schoolhouse that 
could be used in case of fire — it was cracked 
and all that, but still it could be heard over 
the little community. 

All the members were finally won over to 
the original town-clock faction, except one 
old man — the richest in the village — a chronic 
objector who acted as a watch-dog of the 
exchequer. 

His argument was that if a fire should 
occur at school time, the bucket brigade would 
not know whether they were being called to 
arms or the children to school. 

85 



WHAT TIME SHE BURNT 

In spite of this he was voted down and 
reluctantly retired to silence. 

The town clock was purchased, finally ar- 
rived, and installed in the tower of the "Hotel 

de 'Vile.' " 

At the first board meeting thereafter, a 
prepared resolution was presented and 
adopted, voting fifteen cents per week to old 
Socrates Skillen to wind the clock, and to fill, 
trim, light and otherwise care for one lamp 
to be placed behind the semi-transparent dial 
so the citizens could see the time at night. 

Old Socrates Skillen, by the way, drove a 
baggage wagon all through Grant's Vicks- 
burg campaign, and remembered very dis- 
tinctly of seeing Charles Dickens change cars 
at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1842. 

One night a few weeks after the dedication 
of the common timepiece some one went 
through the town yelling, "Fire!" 

Every one piled out of bed, opened the 
shutters and looked out. There was a faint 
glow in the sky which grew brighter and 
brighter every moment. 

86 



WHAT TIME SHE BURNT 

Some one caught the ear of the crier long 
enough to ask why he did not ring the school- 
bell. But lo ! it was the schoolhouse. 

All poured out of their houses and ran 
down to the corner of Main and Front streets. 
Men shouted, dogs barked, and cattle, horses 
and chickens went bellowing, neighing and 
cackling over the fields in a stampede. 

Crowds gathered and stood in little groups 
and watched the smoke pour out from under 
the shingles, lighted by peeping tongues of 
flame which met neighboring tongues of 
flame, finally joining together in one grand 
volcanic roar to light the sky and be reflected 
to the hills, woods and fields in the valley 
beyond. 

There was no apparatus in the hamlet; the 
building was doomed, so the bucket brigade 
confined themselves to the roof of Count & 
Poudry's meat market and Butterfield & 
Skudder's general store across the way. 

A long lash of fire swept away from the 
main mass, entwined the belfry, and in a few 
moments there was a loud crack, the apex 
lagged down on one side, and the bell fell in- 
to the ruins with a farewell clank — and was 

87 



WHAT TIME SHE BURNT 

silent forever to the good people of Ding- 
man's Ferry, Pike County, Indiana. 

The roar of flame gradually ceased, the fire 
died down, and gave place to white smoke in 
the blackness of night. A few charred stud- 
ding, a mass of glowing embers, the tall chim- 
ney and the brick foundation marked the spot 
where the village seat of learning had stood. 

"The devouring element had done its work 
of devastation, and the conflagration was com- 
plete," as the county paper said the next week. 

Many of the villagers had gone home. All 
was quiet save a few voices of those who re- 
mained to tell what they were doing when 
they heard the alarm. 

The members of the town board were lined 
up under the wooden awning in front of a 
store across the way. The chronic objector 
came along — the richest man of the town who 
had stood out in favor of the fire-bell. He 
eyed all the members collectively, then indi- 
vidually. He looked at the smoldering ruins, 
then up at the town clock, stroked his beard, 
cast an eye skyward, opened one corner of his 
mouth, and said: "Well; you'll have one sat- 
isfaction. You'll know what time she burnt." 

88 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

A Christmas Story 

A CITY boarding-house may be merry 
on Christmas day — merry as com- 
■ pared to common days ; but by con- 
trast with other institutions and places it is 
dreary indeed. The depression is relative, 
just as the purity of the snow renders con- 
spicuous by difference the sombreness of the 
old buildings, the dilapidated fences and neg- 
lected yards — the general indifference of the 
inhabitants to their surroundings; for — 

When boarders enter the front door the 
love and sentiment of home jumps out over 
the back fence. 

These dwellers are happy in their small 
way, just as they live in their small way; for 
they have their ten-centers in lieu of everyday 
pipes and stogies, and half-pint hip-pocket 
flasks of superficial cheer — both the compli- 
ments of Steve Bruner's saloon around the 
corner. 

91 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

There are none of the footsteps and high- 
keyed voices of romping children; no odors 
of savory dressing, burning brandy on the 
plum pudding, no rich aroma of freshly made 
coffee; there are no cheery voices of men and 
women over the exchange of presents and in 
anticipation of the feast to come — even the 
japanned tin signs of the cancer doctor, the 
chiropodist and the clairvoyant hanging on 
the rotten porch columns along the way, seem 
to swing, sway, creak and groan in minor- 
keyed defiance of the day's spirit that every- 
body feels everywhere else. 

In one of these ex-homes, in the city's ex- 
aristocratic residence section, the third floor 
ball-room had been arranged for revenue only 
by wallpaper-covered flooring board parti- 
tions into a series of human box stalls. 

The ceilings of these were interrupted here 
and there by roof hip lines; the floors were 
covered with dust-laden ingrain carpet, and 
light came from small oval windows set just 
above the baseboards; all were furnished with 
very narrow iron beds and the coverings ap- 
peared to have been dyed in sooty water at 
their last alleged washing; then there was a 

93 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

Straight-backed chair, and a blistered var- 
nished washstand with a small foot rug before 
it — with several cakes of soap tramped into 
the warp. 

The third floor smells of this human livery 
stable seemed on the friendliest terms with 
all the other smells of all the other floors; 
for they mixed in a most affectionate way. 
The back end of a drug store smell, no doubt 
from the weekly shots of the bugging gun; 
the dry wood and dust smell of a garret, with 
about two parts cheap tobacco to one of coal 
oil and bad plumbing were seasoned to taste 
with the oldest cooking odors to be found 
alive and tottering about the place. 

In one of these stalls sat a very young man 
— a bunch of collars in his hand. Those 
worn one day he placed on one knee, those 
worn two days on the other knee, — one, ab- 
solutely clean, he threw into a very old suit 
case on the floor. 

"I'll wear that on the job hunt tomorrow," 
he muttered aloud, "but, O hell! what's the 
use?" 

He had slept off his breakfast — as they say 
in hard-up circles. The cleanest of the day- 

93 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

worn collars had been found and put on, and 
with hollow eyes he sat gazing out the win- 
dow — vacantly watching the snowflakes as 
they fell on the deserted street. They were 
not eyes hollowed by dissipation or disease, 
but — 

Hunger! 

There came a step on the stair, then a 
sharp hard-heeled pounding walk along the 
hall. 

The man took a pair of scissors from his 
suit case and began trimming the frayed edges 
of his cuffs. 

Then a hard, bony knock on the thin floor- 
ing board door. Without waiting for an 
answer a long nose appeared inside a pair of 
hollow cheeks, hair done up in curl papers in 
front and coiled to the dimensions of a cloak 
button in the back. 

"Yer room rent wuz due last night," said 
the shrew in a voice as hard and sharp as her 
walk, knock and features. 

"I am aware of it," said the man without 
looking up from his cuff trimming, "but this 
is Christmas and — " 

94 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

*'Yes this is Christmas and all that," in- 
terrupted the shrew, "but that ain't payin' my 
rent on this house an' — " 

"I was going to say when you interrupted 
me," put in the man, "that I have been hunt- 
ing a job for a week. I can't very well con- 
tinue on Christmas, and then again all the 
pawn-shops are closed." 

The last part of the man's sentence was 
uttered with a grasp toward the pocket con- 
taining a leather case of drawing instruments 
and a glance at his overcoat on the bed where 
it had served as bed-clothes reinforcement. 

The shrew's head disappeared from the 
crack of the door and the sound of hard, sharp 
footsteps and hard, sharp-voiced muttering 
diminished down the stairs — the only audible 
words being: "Only two dollars," "pay," 
"dead beats," "how can I expect," "my rent," 
etc. 

The man brushed the cuff trimmings from 
his lap and looked down on the deserted 
street again — with eyes hollowed by hunger. 

Without turning from the window he 
reached into his vest pocket and rubbed a 
nickel with a dime together for a moment; 

95 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

then took the leather case of drawing instru- 
ments from his inside pocket, opened it and 
displayed the shining steel and german silver. 
"These'll be the last to go," he said aloud 
with another glance toward the overcoat on 
the bed. "But what's the use ?" 

His eye fell on a razor in the suit case. 
He picked it up, opened it and looked hard 
at the blade. "That would make a nasty 
mess," he sighed. "Carbolic acid? That's 
a low-browed trick. There's a decent way of 
doing everything — but still all the streams are 
frozen." 

The man fell to looking down on the street 
again, watching the slowly falling snow, each 
flake distinct against a background of somber 
hues and tones of neighboring buildings, 
fences and deserted street. 

The man arose, put on his overcoat, felt in 
his pocket for the nickel and dime, rubbed 
them together and went down stairs. 

If there is one place less merry than another 
on Christmas day — next to a boarding-house 
— it is a cheap restaurant. One of the all- 
night kind — the key of the front door lost 

96 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

years ago, and where the proprietor never 
comes save to count and take away the money. 
One that looks cheap enough to suit the most 
exacting country excursionist. 

At one of these the man entered, first stop- 
ping to feel in his vest pocket for the nickel 
and dime and rub them together for a mo- 
ment. 

The place was deserted by patrons — one 
waiter stood in the window looking out on 
the street at the slowly falling snow; an- 
other stood at the kitchen door, head down 
and idly scratching figures on the white sand 
of the floor with his feet. 

The air of the room was heavy laden with 
steam and the rank weedy smell of over- 
boiled coffee grounds; and no sound but the 
song in a foreign tongue of a dishwasher in 
the rear. 

The only thing that could possibly have 
been construed as Christmas decoration by 
wildest stretch of imagination were some 
coarse rusty stocks of celery that hung limp 
over the edges of tumblers filled with milky 
water and set in the center of each table 

97 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

covered with egg, coffee and catsup-stained 
cloths. 

The man took a seat on a high stool at 
the counter — the last in the row towards the 
rear. 

The nearest waiter stood before him, arms 
apart, hands resting on the counter top and 
idly flipping crumbs off on the floor with his 
fore-fingers as he waited for the order. 

The man looked about confusedly, felt in 
his vest pocket for the nickel and dime, rubbed 
them together for a moment and ordered 
beans and clear coffee. 

"Bullets and draw a black!" yelled the 
waiter to some one in the kitchen. 

With the order before the only person in 
the room, the waiter resumed his idle figure- 
scraping in the floor sand. 

All was still. 

The man bent over, looked down and in- 
haled the steam from the beans and coffee, felt 
in his vest pocket for the nickel and dime and 
in his inside pocket for his instrument case. 
Then he surveyed the room — the walls and 
ceiling grimed with steam and grease, the 
coarse rusty stocks of celery that hung limp in 

98 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

the glasses of milky water; through the front 
window at the clouded light of the deserted 
street and finally gazed vacantly at the slow- 
ly falling snowflakes — all with the hollow 
eyes of hunger, 

"What's the use? What's the use? What's 
the—" 

The third time repetition was interrupted 
— the man's attention became attracted by a 
dirty piece of bun on the floor near the side 
wall. 

There was of course nothing In the bun 
itself, but — 

It moved — slowly, steadily toward the wall. 

The man leaned forward, looking Intently 
with hollow eyes of hunger. 

There was a mouse behind the bun! 

He had settled himself for his first fork 
load of beans and a sip of coffee when a cat 
came out of the kitchen door, spied the mouse, 
crouched and sprang. The mouse disap- 
peared. The cat, logged with food, merely 
smelled the hole and passed on. 

The mouse came out of the hole, looked, 
listened, ran to the bun, which began to move 
— slowly, steadily to the wall. 

99 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

The man took several fork loads of beans, 
felt In his vest pocket for the nickel and dime, 
rubbed them together and then reached for 
his instrument case. 

He looked again. One obstacle had been 
overcome — the bun was up to the wall, but — 

The bun was too large for the hole. 

Another fork load of beans, another sip of 
coffee. The bun began to turn and twist and 
tumble before the hole. 

The man was about to feel in his pocket 
for the nickel and dime and in his inside coat 
pocket for the instrument case, but he only 
made a pass in that direction; for his interest 
and attention were on the bun, which slowly, 
surely became smaller and smaller. 

To his food again. Several fork loads of 
beans and sips of coffee. Then he dug hard 
with his fork at a piece of pickled pork, cut- 
ting it Into portions which he ate with the few 
remaining beans, and finally finished with the 
last swallow of coffee. 

The man looked up. The little drama of 
the mouse and bun had closed — the bun was 
in the hole. 

100 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

He picked up his check, walked up front, 
carelessly threw it on the cash desk with the 
dime and walked out with his overcoat on his 
arm. 

He stood in front of the place for a mo- 
ment and took a long breath. The sun had 
come out, the streets were filling with after- 
noon strollers. The hungry look had dis- 
appeared from the man's eyes, he protruded 
his chin and ground his teeth. 

"That was only a little mouse," he said to 
himself, "but I am a man." 

He slapped his pocket containing his instru- 
ments and looked down at his overcoat on his 
arm — the bun was nearing the hole. 

"A sale will bring more than a soak," he 
said again to himself. "Guess there's a 
Ghetto somewhere in this town where Christ- 
mas doesn't prevent their transacting business 
— and I can buy another — well, when I get 
the bun in the hole. 

"Tomorrow the human cats will be logged 
with food and let a man alone while he gets — 
a bun in a hole." 

101 



THE MAN AND THE MOUSE 

That night the man returned to his room- 
ing house minus his overcoat, and plus seven 
dollars which jingled so loudly in his pocket 
that it attracted the attention of the shrew 
who met him on the stairs. 

And the next day — well, he was a man. 



102 



LIGE TINCHARD— PREACHER 



LIGE TINCHARD— PREACHER 

EVERY road up through the southern 
states of America, and across "Smith 
& Wesson's line," seems to lead direct- 
ly to Indianapolis so far as the colored 
brothers are concerned. Yes, and after they 
arrive, all streets lead to Indiana avenue, the 
Great Black Way of Bucktown. 

Bucktown is in the same relation to the 
community as San Juan Hill in New York. 

An Indiana avenue rooming-house landlady 
said that all she had to do to get roomers was 
to keep plenty of coal in the stoves, and they'd 
be as thick on the floor at fifteen cents a flop 
as flies on a week-old piece of sticky paper. 

It was in one of the neighborhoods of that 
city where the residents are just prosperous 
enough to dislike doing their own work — 
where they keep maid servants, but can't 
afford men of all work — where the masters of 
the houses are continually looking out of the 
window for some chance stroller up from the 

105 



LIGE TINCHARD PREACHER 

Great Black Way to call in and at least take 
the rough off. 

It was early morning. The first snow of 
the year had fallen during the night, leaving 
everything pure and white. The smoothness 
and whiteness was not disturbed even to the 
extent of cat tracks around a house and up to 
a back kitchen door. 

Lige Tinchard had arrived in town only 
the night before. From where? Well, he 
didn't know himself. He was looking the 
town over — the business prospects. He came 
through an alley of the neighborhood just de- 
scribed. 

His trousers flapped about his legs as he 
shuffled along; and his garments hung with a 
freedom that suggested no underclothes. The 
lack of food was indicated by wrinkles in his 
stomach that showed clear through his vest. 

Lige Tinchard was black. So black that his 
single figure in the alley, contrasted with the 
snow of the landscape, made him appear by 
contrast like a fly in a pan of milk. 

As he passed, one fat old colored cook 
looked out of a back window and said that 

106 



LIGE TINCHARD PREACHER 

Lige didn't hav^e enough clothes on to make 
an iron-holder. 

A very dark-colored mammy looked out of 
another back window and said that he was 
black as seven nights — that she used to think 
she was black, but he beat her a couple of 
nights. 

Just as Lige Tinchard came along, a stable 
door opened at his side. 

Lige stopped and inhaled the animal heat, 
mixed with the odors of manure ammonia, 
leather, hay and axle grease that rushed out 
into the cold alley. 

With the opening of that stable door 
Lige's opportunity opened. 

"Want a job curryin' and hitchin' up my 
horse?" said a white man inside. 

Lige went in and to work. He not only 
curried "Old Ned," but rubbed him down so 
that when he drove him around in front his 
coat shone in the morning sunlight like a new 
plug hat. 

Lige got a quarter and breakfast in the 
kitchen. 

107 



LIGE TINCHARD PREACHER 

Then the madam of the house wanted the 
rugs and floors cleaned — well, that night Lige 
slept in the stable. 

It wasn't a week until Lige had the key of 
every outside basement door in the neighbor- 
hood where he entered night and morning to 
attend fires. He wore good cast-off clothes 
that he traded for work, and all the wrinkles 
were out of his stomach. 

He did barn, household and basement 
chores for a large clientele at 25 cents per 
hour. Lige had as many quarters as there 
were working hours in the day — and then 
some; for a woman fitted him out with an old 
dress suit to wait table at an evening dinner 
party. This added another to his source of 
revenue — he furnished waiters for balls, 
parties and receptions, not only himself but 
as many others as needed. 

Lige was so busy that he didn't have time 
to go over on the Great Black Way and spend 
his quarters. He still lived in the barn where 
first he lit, with its original comforts in- 
creased by the addition of a little monkey 
stove. 

All this was more than six years ago. 

108 



LIGE TINCHARD PREACHER 

One night Lige was paying off some of his 
waiter helpers from a large roll of bills. 

"Say, Lige," said one of the young negroes, 
"what you all savin' you money fo? You 
ain't got nobody to leave it to? You workin' 
all the time an' don't git no chance to spend 
what you git." 

"Nevah you mind, boy," returned Lige, 
"I_I_I'm preachin'." 

"Preachin' !" exclaimed the other 
"Preachin'! Whare's you preachin'?" 

"You know them two properties I got over 
heah on Indgiany avenue?" said Lige. "Well, 
there's whare I's preachin'," 

"Them's no church, what's you all talkin' 
about, man?" 

"You don't need no church to preach," re- 
plied Lige, "I'm preachin' there whare I got 
them properties, I'm preachin' whare I work 
every day and with this roll o' money in my 
pocket." 

Lige waited for all the wonderment to per- 
colate the other negro's understanding, but 
the other gave it up as being past him and 
started to walk off. 

109 



LIGE TINCHARD PREACHER 

"Come back heah, boy," yelled Lige. "I'll 
tell you what I mean. 

"I ain't got nobody to leave what I got to. 
I ain't goin' to leave it to nobody. After I'm 
gone it'll be there an' preachin' to all you 
young ornery niggahs. Yas, sah, an' while 
I'm gettin' mo' I'm preachin' to you all. I'm 
tellin' you what one niggah can do by workin' 
all the time an' not spendin' his money on 
crap shootin', turpentine gin and picnics and 
dancin' an' all the likes — workin' all the time 
'stead o' spendin' all the time. 

"When I struck this heah man's town I 
didn't have nothin' — just as old Aunt Millie 
said when she first seed me comin' up the alley 
one cold mawnin' — I didn't have clothes 
enough to make an iron-holder. 

"Yes, sah, an' — an' — I — I — I'm goin' to 
keep right on preachin' — the kind that ain't 
sayin' a word." 

And Lige Tinchard is still preaching. 



110 



THE EGOTISM OF MEMORY 



THE EGOTISM OF MEMORY 

EVENING is on. The town-clock 
clanks out six. The anvil in the black- 
smith-shop around the corner ceases 
its ring. The merchants are locking their 
stores and are going home. They turn and 
look at you as they pass. The swallows chirp 
on their homeward fly over the public square, 
and the robins in the trees of the court house 
yard carol out their lay of joy. 

If you are an old man — say a bachelor of 
sixty and five, you begin to wander up the by- 
ways and obscure places of the old town — 
once familiar, but now made strange by time. 

You pass the rear of an old livery-stable. 
An old hearse is piled back in one corner. 
You recognize it as the first in the county. 
You stand there and think of the sorrows this 
old vehicle has seen — of the burdens it has 
borne. A breeze blows through the cracks 
in the old stable walls, and one of the glass- 
less doors of the old hearse swings and creaks 

113 



THE EGOTISM OF MEMORY 

on its hinges, as if it sang the funeral chant 
of its former days of usefulness. 

There it stands, glass broken out, paint 
worn off, and only one big black moth-eaten 
plume as a memorial of its past grandeur. 

There it stands, back in a corner amid a pile 
of broken shafts, tongues, scraps of old iron 
and rubbish — forgotten as the flowers on the 
silent ones it has borne from earthly homes 
forever. 

You wander on up a side street, stop be- 
fore a certain house and stand silently con- 
templating it — your mind is on a certain blue- 
eyed and rosy-checked girl — Helen. 

It's dark now. 

You look into the heavens. The moon goes 
into shadow. Great white clouds whirl past 
like a procession of phantoms, the wind blows 
through the trees along the sidewalk, and 
they swing and sway like great black funeral 
plumes for the death of seasons past. 

You think of your long lonely life, the suc- 
cess you have attained, and compare it all to 
that of your less material friends who are 
happily married, and with children and grand- 
children to honor them in the nodding-time of 

114 



THE EGOTISM OF MEMORY 

life — it all reverts to a picture of blue eyes 
and rosy cheeks — Helen. 

You dream a waking dream of youth. A 
peaceful summer Sunday evening, the church 
bell ringing, people sitting out on their front 
steps and in doorways follow you with their 
eyes as you pass. 

The lamp in the little parlor burns low — 
she is at the gate to meet you, blue eyes and 
rosy cheeks — Helen. 

You waken, and in the weak egotism of 
memory walk up on the porch and knock at 
the door. 

A boy answers. 

"Do you know a lady living about here by 
the name of — I don't know her last name 
now, but her first is Helen." 

"Yes, that's my mother's name — want to 
see her?" 

You walk in, sit down and look around the 
room in an effort to recognize some of the old 
furniture. 

A woman, worn with work and shriveled 
with age, sits by the window. 

115 



THE EGOTISM OF MEMORY 

You look at her In an effort to see the 
mother you knew — of blue eyes and rosy 
cheeks — Helen. 

The mother of the boy enters the room. 

You arise, extend a hand, give your name 
and say: "I used to come to see you a good 
many years ago." 

She doesn't know you. 

Slowly your hand goes to your chin, you 
look from the mother of the boy to the grand- 
mother seated by the window, and sighingly 
say: 

"Yes, I guess it was the old lady." 



116 



THE BROKEN SPELL 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

JUDGE DAVID S. GOODING was for 
many years the leading criminal lawyer 
of central Indiana. Like most men of 
his professional time, he figured in politics — 
he used the same powers that swayed juries 
for the benefit of the candidates of his political 
party. Typical of a type — none of your 
ninety-pound modern lawyer, — with an intel- 
lect that clicked like a rat trap, boiled eyes 
covered with a pair of glasses as big as stove 
lids, and a voice that suggested a graveyard 
on a wet night. He was big and brawny and 
brainy — possibly more brawn than brain. 
His voice — well, Eph Marsh used to say that 
he could send more shingles off an old court 
house roof than a hard rain. Look over the 
grass in the Hancock County, Indiana, court- 
house yard and find it covered with pieces of 
rotten shingles, with the ground perfectly dry, 
and you would know that old Dave Goodin' 
had been makin' a speech. 

119 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

On the main street of Greenfield, Indiana, 
and on the second floor of a dingy old brick 
building was the office of The Honorable 
David S. Gooding. An iron stairway in the 
alley at the side led directly into it. Every 
item of furnishing had served from another 
age and would appear like curious bric-a-brac 
in a modern law office. The cherry desk with 
a door hinged at the bottom and lowering to 
form a writing slant; the inkstand with a cork 
attached by a string; the quill pens, the blot- 
ting sand box, the sealing wax and seals; the 
green-top table in the middle of the room 
strewn with dog-eared law books and papers; 
the wire card case hanging to a nail filled 
with business cards; the energetic ticking wall- 
clock with a long, sweeping pendulum out- 
side; the cracked, glazed yellow maps of the 
Eastern and Western Hemispheres on oppo- 
site sides of the wall; the dusty hair-cloth 
sofa, the brass-knobbed iron safe that locked 
with a huge key — and all were frowned down 
upon from the top of the book case by a 
bronze plaster bust of Sir William Black- 
stone. 

120. 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

The old judge, himself, would have served 
as brlc-a-brac. He had lived into another age 
and brought all the articles and manners in 
dress of the past with him. Stovepipe hat, 
stock collar, swallow tail coat, pleated shirt 
front, silk vest, doe-skin pants and white gait- 
ers. On the street he carried a huge cotton 
umbrella which in size suggested a circus 
tent; rattan ribs with small ivory balls at the 
ends and the "center pole" worn off at the 
ferrule end — he clutched it nervously as he 
trudged along as if afraid some one would 
snatch it away from him. 

The old judge had stumped the "Grand 
Old Hoosier State," as he called it, in every 
campaign as far back as Zach Taylor, and 
was proud of it. Every school house, court 
house and public hall from Ohio to Lake 
county, and crosswise again from Steuben to 
Posey county had rung with his voice. 

He had conducted the Independence Day 
celebration back through several generations 
of children by assembling them in the Hard 
Shell Baptist Church. After prayer and in- 
troductory remarks he would have the bell 
rung violently and as the sound died away he 

121 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

would arise and read the Declaration of In- 
dependence in a voice that thundered far be- 
yond the compass of the walls. 

Once the Judge returned to his native state, 
Kentucky, as the principal speaker at a Demo- 
cratic barbecue in a "Clearing" of the woods 
near his native town. 

Now, the judge pursued the old style of 
stump oratory. He hooted and derided the 
opposing party and their candidates. To him 
every Republican was not a horse-thief, but 
every horse-thief was a Republican. 

People were assembled for miles around. 
The judge mounted the platform that had 
been draped in flags and bunting. A mighty 
cheer greeted him. He advanced to a deal 
table in front, poured a broken handled beer 
mug full of water from an iron-stone china 
pitcher, drank it with two gulps and sat the 
mug down with a bang. Then he twisted one 
leg slightly around the other, rested his 
weight on one foot, steadied himself by plac- 
ing two fingers at the second joints on the 
table. In this attitude he surveyed the assem- 
blage with a watery grey eye. 

122 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

The lemonade and peanut vendors ceased 
their cry. There were no sounds save the 
rattle, made by the wind, of dry leaves hang- 
ing to a nearby beech tree, and the hum of 
conversation on the skirts of the crowd. 
There are always those in the frayed edges of 
an assemblage of this kind, who cannot hear 
the speaker, who always cheer the loudest at a 
climax in a speech and frequently retire be- 
hind trees to partake of the contents of hip- 
pocket flasks. 

As before mentioned, the judge surveyed 
the assemblage with a watery grey eye, and 
as one sometimes goes over the strings of a 
musical instrument previous to playing to see 
that they are all in tune, the judge went over 
all the notes of his voice clearing his throat, 
coughing and gasping all at the same time. 
He then began his address somewhat as fol- 
lows: 

"Fellow Citizens and Friends of the Dem- 
ocratic Party: — It is with a good deal of 
pleasure that I address you in this particular 
locality this afternoon; for it was here that I 
was born and reared. In yonder log house 
was where I first saw the light of day and 

123 



THE BROKEN SPELL 

where my parents passed all their early 
struggles when this country was yet a wilder- 
ness. And over there, on that vine-clad hill, 
behind that clump of trees there are two 
mounds and my poor old mother and father 
lie there at rest, free from all earthly cares 
forever." 

And the fellows on the outskirts of the 
crowd who could not hear, raised their hands 
above their heads and shouted: "That's 
right, Davy, give 'em hell." 



134 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

HE sat near a group of us in the lobby 
of the Grand Hotel at Indianapolis. 
He was a ruralist. The rain-settled 
dust in the crease of his hat and in the 
wrinkles of his clothes and shoes would have 
indicated that to the observer, but all doubts 
were removed when he put up one leg on his 
knee, pulled off a loose fitting gaiter shoe 
with the life all out of the elastic at the side, 
poured about 90 grains of wheat into a con- 
venient cuspidor, dusted off the bottom of his 
sock and repeated the operation on the other 
foot. 

He was the type that with the passing years 
produces rural philosophers; for he was 
shrewd, yet kindly, observing among his own 
people and in sympathy with them, yet knows 
their weaknesses. 

We had exhausted all topics of conversa- 
tion, had smoked ourselves into a state of 
wakefulness and were receptive to entertain- 
ment. 

137 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

The rural one observed this, pulled a 
smooth, yellow, machine-made cigar out of 
his pocket, bit the end off with a loud bass 
sounding pop of his teeth and abruptly began 
his narrative: 

"Every country town is noted for some- 
thing. 

"M'Cordsville is noted for liars. It got 
the reputation years ago by all the loafers at 
Snozier's grocery tryin' to equal a whopper 
got off by old Gettysburg Stebbins. He told 
that he dug out of Libby prison durin' the 
army by makin' a tunnel two miles long with 
nothin' but a tin cup to dig with; that he come 
out in a farmer's barn lot, was hungry, took 
his sword, cut a ham off a live hog, and come 
back there two years afterward to find that 
the ham had pretty near growed on the hog 
again. 

"My town, Keersburg, Indiana, is noted 
for funerals. 

"Ambrose Hedges, our undertaker, has got 
finer warerooms than any here in the city, 
Scepter Hill cemetery is better located and 
purtier than any in the state, and with more 
fine monuments; and there hasn't been a 

138 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

funeral in the whole county in the memory 
of the oldest inhabitant with less than eleven 
carriages. 

"Of course all this costs some money and 
it frequently makes public charges of the 
widders and orphants, but the public don't 
mind, fer we got the reputation fer funerals 
to maintain. Our school houses is in bad 
shape all over the county and we need more 
of 'em; the jail on the court house grounds 
ain't nothin' better than a bear pit to put 
human bein's in, and then again, the Reliance 
Fire Company's shed is about to fall in, but 
it will take all the tax money to put a new 
iron fence around the cemetery, — they'll leave 
the reputation for good schools and a jail and 
fire house to some other town, but none of 
'em'U ever get ahead of Keersburg on 
funerals. 

"Why, I do believe I learned my figures 
when I was a kid standin' on the corner of 
Main and Front streets countin' funeral car- 
riages. 

"Congressman Stiggens had thirty-two 
carriages at his funeral, the highest known 
record. He was a politician and a director 

129 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

in the C, W. & M. railroad and a lot of rail- 
road men came down from Chicago. They 
delayed the funeral two days to allow the 
Orchard Hotel to have cots shipped up from 
Indianapolis. 

"Old Hedges, the undertaker, buys a new 
hearse every year, — he never lets nothin' get 
run down, and he's got five practically new 
hacks. He trades in the old hearse and the 
firm that makes the new one always shows 
it at the state fair. He's got the biggest piece 
of plate glass on the public square in his show 
winder, and I reckon one of the biggest in the 
state. He always leaves the gas a burnin' low 
at night and has the coffins in his winder turn 
up a little on edge so you can see the linin'. 

"He must make money, for he gets all the 
good trade in that part of the state, and he 
certainly does know how to run a funeral. 
The only complaint anybody has about him is 
that he goes out at a funeral while the min- 
ister is speakin' and cusses his drivers fer 
talkin' too loud and the bosses fer gnawin' the 
bark off the shade trees in front of the house. 

"Everybody goes to the cemetery in Keers- 
burg on Sunday just the same as you people 

130 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

here in the city goes to the parks. They sit 
around on the grass or walk around and crit- 
icize the monuments and flower beds that 
different ones has got over their graves. 

"Old Ves Skillen has just completed a fam- 
bly vault that is attractin' a good deal of at- 
tention just now. It seems that years ago he 
used to be in the private bankin' business and 
about the time they got to organlzin' state and 
national banks old Ves got disgusted and quit, 
— he said that he didn't want no inspectors 
from the state or government comin' in and 
stickin' their nose into the private affairs of 
him and his customers to find out how much 
money they had on hand, fer they might have 
to pay taxes on it. 

"Well, old Ves he sold all his bank fixtures 
and desks and one thing and another when he 
went out of the private bankin' business, but 
he had an iron safe as big as a smoke house 
that he couldn't seem to get shet of. Well, a 
few months ago he had it hauled out to 
Scepter Hill cemetery, stood it upon the 
fambly lot and built a stone wall around it in 
the form of a vault with the big doors of the 
safe for the door of the vault. 

131 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

"He got It all done in time fer last Sun- 
day's crowd and some devilish feller said that 
he hoped that old Ves had given the Angel 
Gabriel the combination. 

"They select the preachers at Keersburg ac- 
cordin' to their ability to conduct funeral serv- 
ices. They never go around hearin' a pros- 
pect in a regular church sermon, but they wait 
'till they know he is goin' to preach a funeral 
sermon somewhere and they send one of the 
committee around to hear him. 

"They like these kind that talk through 
their nose when they get very sanctimonious. 

"They got a new preacher there now, and 
the other day he preached a funeral sermon 
on the text, 'And there shall be no death to 
die, nor life to live.' 

"He's got all the old ladies in the county 
lookin' in their Bibles and huntin' from cover 
to cover to find that text, and they can't do it. 
It seems that nobody has the nerve to ask him 
where it's from, but I guess it's one of them 
texts that sounds better than it looks. 

"Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you that old Am- 
brose Hedges always sets off the public fire- 
works Fourth of July on the court house 

133 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

square. The merchants take up a collection 
for it and It's always a big event. Old Hedges 
is always a kind of a master of ceremonies in 
everything, and he certainly does know how 
to set off fireworks, — he's good at all kinds 
of sky work. 

"Last year we planned a bigger time than 
usual and they appointed me. Judge Joel Wil- 
liams and Taylor Ragan, the grocery keeper 
there in town, to mix the punch for the 
Fourth of July speakers. 

"I own the grain elevator down by the 
depot and the three of us went around and 
bought up all the fancy liquor in the gin mills 
over town that had been settin' in fly-specked 
bottles in their show windows and that they 
couldn't sell. Most anything will do for 
punch. They just gave it to us when they 
found out what we wanted with it, but guess 
they wouldn't have been so generous if they 
knew what we did with it. 

"Now Judge Williams is one of them re- 
fined sort of men with a house full of books 
and a wife that ain't afraid to speak her mind. 
He's got more books than a Carnegie library 
and they say he married off his daughters to 

133 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

make room for the books. He's even got 'em 
on the edge of the steps of the front stairs 
and only allowin' enough room between to go 
up and down. I do believe he's got every 
book that's ever printed and a lot of them are 
alike, for I know he's got five sets of the Rise 
and Fall of the Roman Empire and three sets 
of Dickens' works. 

"Well, as I was goin' on to tell we took all 
these wet groceries Into my office out of the 
way of the crowd and where we could mix the 
punch and nobody would bother us. Taylor 
Ragan, he didn't show up, — he was too busy 
cuttin' cheese and dealln' out crackers to the 
farmers that come in to attend the exercises. 
Along about ten o'clock In the morning It set 
Into a drizzlln' rain, we got lonesome way 
off there by ourselves and began to mix punch 
and taste it and pretty soon we got to tastin' 
it about as fast as we made It. It began to 
rain harder and we knew there would be no 
speakin' that afternoon and It would be a 
shame to let all the good punch go to waste. 

"About two o'clock In the afternoon old 
Hedges stuck his head in the door to see how 
the punch was gettin' along and we fixed up 

134 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

another batch for him. We had a couple of 
fancy bottles of some white lookin' stuff that 
the judge said was wood alcohol. Course it 
wasn't though, — it was just one of his jokes, 
for really it was some kind of cordial water. 
We poured these two bottles in the punch for 
old Hedge's benefit and whatever it was it 
made it strong enough to bear up eggs, — it 
wa^ worse than hard cider that had been layin' 
in a whiskey barrel. 

"Hedges laid around there all afternoon 
and about four o'clock he was pretty tight. 
By that time the rain had stopped and he con- 
cluded he'd better go up town and see about 
unpackin' the fireworks. They had a flat- 
form built on the public square where there 
wasn't no trees. Old Hedges got out his 
boxes and was unpackin' 'em and arranging 
the sky rockets and pin wheels in a big pile. 
He was pretty unsteady or he wouldn't have 
done it. Somehow, anyway, he must have 
dropped a cigar in the pile, or it might have 
been some devilish boy throwed a match in, — 
we never did get it quite figgered out, but 
anyhow the whole batch went oft at once in 
broad daylight, — about $250 worth. It 

135 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

blowed up the flatform they built and the 
rockets and pin wheels went zizzling and 
sputterin' through the grass in the court house 
yard and set fire to the band stand that the 
band boys had built the year before at con- 
siderable expense, and it burned clean to the 
ground. It scared all the teams hitched to 
the rack around the square, a lot of 'em run 
oflf and what we missed in aerial display that 
night we made up in rain, punch and excite- 
ment that afternoon. 

"I didn't get home that night till pretty 
near eight o'clock. I got home and found my 
wife and kids all cryin' and sick with disap- 
pointment, — it seems I'd promised them that 
mornin' I would come home early, hitch up 
the rig and take them all down to see the fire- 
works. They hadn't heard about the fire- 
works goin' off in broad daylight and blowin' 
up the flatform and burnin' up the band stand. 
I got that explained all straight and gave a 
pretty fair account of it. I'd a been all right 
if I hadn't gone too far and got a little too 
much confidence. I finished tellin' them all 
about it and was sittin' there quiet in the 
rockin' chair when all at once I broke out and 

136 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

sez to my wife, — 'Mary, I believe I forgot to 
shet the shafe !' My wife looked at me kind 
of strange and then I knew I'd said 'shafe' 
instead of safe. The next time I got 'safe' all 
right, but I said 'shoot' instead of 'shut.' Try 
as I would, whenever I said 'shut' all right I 
would say 'shafe,' and when I said 'safe' all 
right I got all fuddled and said 'shoot.' 

"My wife come up to me close, took a big 
long sniff, — and I guess I did smell like a mix- 
ture of a distillery and an upper bureau 
drawer with all that fancy liquor in me, for 
some of it did taste like perfumery. Then 
she started in to give me fits about comin' 
home in that condition, a leavin' all my val- 
uables with the safe open and all them tramps 
around the depot. I don't remember what 
she said or when she quit, for I went to sleep 
right there in the chair. 

"The next mornin' I went down to the 
office early to clean up the wreck and hid 
away all the bottles, and I no more and fin- 
ished when my father-in-law came along all 
excitement. He's an old retired hard shell 
Baptist preacher, and he went on to tell that 
he had just come by Judge Joel Williams' 

137 



THE MAN FROM KEERSBURG 

house, that he had stood outside and heard the 
judge's wife just a givin' him Hail Columbia, 
that he got from the talk that the judge had 
come home drunk, the night before, tried to 
get up stairs quietly, had got to the top and 
fell down and knocked all the books off the 
steps and his wife had to pull him out from 
under a big pile of 'em. 

"The old man said that he hoped I would 
never come home in that condition, and I told 
him that I wouldn't, — again, but I said the 
word 'again' under my breath so he wouldn't 
hear it." 

At the close of his story, the man from 
Keersburg got up, stretched, brushed the 
cigar ashes from the wrinkles of his vest, bade 
us all good night, went over to the desk, got 
his key and disappeared in the door of the 
elevator. 



138 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

ONE of the best country town char- 
acters is the sporty bachelor. There 
used to be one at — well, it doesn't 
make any difference about the town, for there 
is one in every town of five to ten thousand 
inhabitants. He is a type — usually a man of 
45 to 50 years old, hair of such a shade that 
you can't tell whether it is very blond or very 
grey, and which he always keeps closely 
cropped; he is clean shaven with a sort of 
made-to-order complexion as if he used a lot 
of woman's dope on his face. His clothes 
are always light in color and almost college 
boy-like in their extreme cut; a low cut vest, a 
stiff front shirt with fine red stripes — some- 
times the stripes are blue, but always running 
across rather than vertical. About the only 
antique item of his dress are his shoes of the 
box-toe type and of alligator leather. While 
these last named members are rather dainty in 
cut, as is the effect of the entire man, yet they 
are of the same material as those worn by 

141 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

switch crew railroad brakemen a couple of 
decades ago. 

The sporty bachelor lives at the hotel — the 
Pearson House; he is the last one down to 
breakfast, the first to dinner at noon and sup- 
per at night, and as he enters the dining-room, 
say in the morning, smelling very loud of 
toilet water and tooth paste, he will smile at 
the head waitress and pass a little semi-con- 
fidential joke to her. He always sits in one 
place — usually about the middle of the room, 
and very frequently his individual waitress 
places a single flower in a water glass before 
his plate. 

Yes, and by the way, he always hangs his 
hat on the same hook of the rack as he passes 
into his meals. Finding anyone else's hat on 
his hook two days in succession he would go to 
the office and complain. 

His father was the leading lawyer in the 
community a generation ago and served a 
couple of terms in Congress, on which 
grounds the sporty bachelor holds himself as 
a member of the county aristocracy, which is 
externally expressed in rather an erect walk, 
partly due, no doubt, to the fact that he at- 

142 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

tended a military school in his early youth at 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

He is never in any business, and is rather 
secretive about his financial affairs which are 
usually in the hands of some hard-headed 
lawyer or banker in the town who has in- 
vested his inheritance in farm mortgages and 
some gilt-edged bank stock, charging a com- 
mission of five per cent for placing the prin- 
cipal and collecting the income and attending 
to other annoying details. This nets the 
sporty bachelor about a hundred and fifty a 
month, and by means of a little penury, ex- 
ternally expressed by carrying his change in a 
purse, he manages to live at the hotel, keep a 
rather slim, high-bred horse and a stingy 
seated buggy at the livery stable around the 
corner, and in which he can be seen driving 
out on the well-paved roads most any pleasant 
afternoon. 

Yes, and out of his income he is even able 
to afford about two suits of clothes a year 
which he orders from a blonde, gum chewing 
city tailor who comes around every six 
months for orders and a week later for a try- 
on. As this tailor buys a drink every time a 

143 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

customer gives him an order or pays a bill, 
he always gets soused towards night and has 
to be either put to bed in the hotel or sent 
down to the eight-four evening train for 
home in the one rattle-box hack that the town 
affords. 

But to return to the sporty bachelor : There 
is such a wealth of characters rich in pictur- 
esqueness about a country town, and all of 
them are more or less standardized, and it is 
almost impossible to describe one without the 
imagination running away to co-related char- 
acters and the pen of a writer following the 
runaway, so the reader will pardon digres- 
sions. 

The sporty bachelor is just on the edge of 
respectability in his community. However, he 
wouldn't be any further away from respecta- 
bility if he could, nor would he be any nearer 
to it — he deliberately plans his relation to so- 
ciety — he is what he wants to be. 

The sporty side of his reputation he gains 
by playing poker every night in a room over 
Hodges' grocery with a well-known lawyer of 
the county, a stock farmer, possibly the hotel- 
keeper, sometimes a merchant of the town, not 

144 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

infrequently a traveling man and always the 
clerk in the jewelry store. This jewelry clerk, 
by the way, makes about fifteen a week as an 
engraver and watch repairer and fifteen more 
a week playing poker with the gang, which In- 
come enables him to put on a front suflUcient 
to be engaged to the most beautiful girl in the 
town, who has about a hundred thousand In 
her own right. In the evenings the only time 
this jewelry clerk is away from the poker 
room is long enough to take his girl to a 
dance in the hotel parlor or at one of the bet- 
ter houses over town about twice a week. He 
is rather secretive about his relation to the 
poker room, usually passing in and out of it 
through the alley, by reason of the parents of 
the young woman to whom he is engaged. 
This young woman herself knows all about 
the poker room — she is just young enough 
and giddy enough to be proud of the atten- 
tions of a semi-rake. 

The sporty bachelor is rather open about 
all his doings, goings and comings. This is 
his way of allowing it to become known that 
he is a sport, yet he keeps the talk moderated 
in order that the respectable side of his life 

145 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

will not be submerged. He drinks about three 
cocktails a day, but rather as a confection 
than a stimulant; he smokes three ten-cent 
cigars a day of a brand a little better value 
than is exhibited in the cigar stand of the 
hotel — they are kept down under the show 
case, and if any of the guests stand in with 
the clerk he will sell him one. 
■ ■ 

Then the sporty bachelor has a little way 
of advertising his gaming propensities by 
sitting around the hotel office in the morning 
after breakfast reading his paper, and if a 
companion at the poker table the night before 
chances in, he will look up, wink in a sly way 
and talk in a mysterious air in an undertone 
that everybody about can hear, giving the im- 
pression to all those not directly addressed 
that it is not intended that they should under- 
stand — referring to a hand that he held the 
night before, or the amount in a certain jack- 
pot and the way the cards ran all evening. 

The young, would-be sports sitting around 
the hotel office will eagerly lick up these little 
secretive bits and look on the source of them 
with eyes of envy. 

146 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

The sporty bachelor always has his Imita- 
tors in a country town. There is always one 
or two fellows who dress as near like him as 
their means will admit, drink one of his cock- 
tails or buy one of his brand of cigars once 
in a while on Saturday nights, and even have 
a poker room with a lower ante and limit 
game than the one patronized by their model. 

Every country town sport has his imitators, 
and possibly by this means the type is perpetu- 
ated. 

Now, the sporty bachelor manages to keep 
about even with the game — he plays poker as 
he lives — that is, in a conservative way. He 
may be five dollars ahead one week and the 
same amount behind the next. If he loses this 
amount he will lay off and attend a lecture or 
concert at the church which is his means of 
keeping up the respectable side of his char- 
acter. He will even go to church on Easter 
or when some big city preacher fills a local 
pulpit. 

Understand, he is never invited to a social 
function at the home of any one — he isn't re- 
spectable enough for that and he doesn't want 
to be. The nearest approach to society he 

147 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

gets, or wants to be, is somewhere with an ad- 
mission fee. 

After a lecture or concert at the church he 
will take some of the women that he has 
known in his youth, and who, like himself, 
have remained single, around to the ice cream 
parlor, but only after much urging on his 
part, and his women guests will look around 
them all the while they are in his company 
as if they knew that they were not doing just 
the right thing and as if they were afraid of 
being seen with him. After these refresh- 
ment occasions he will walk home with one or 
more of his spinster friends and leave them at 
the gate, for no one ever thinks of inviting 
him in. 

In the main this is the type and daily life of 
the average sporty bachelor, except that he 
may go out on one of the residence streets and 
eat Sunday dinner with a sister, sit around all 
afternoon playing with some nieces and 
nephews and come back to the hotel in the 
evening with a new photograph of one of 
these children for the dresser in his room. 

Sometimes you will find a sporty bachelor 
who carries a little paper sack of gumdrops 

148 



THE SPORTY BACHELOR 

In his coat-tail pocket and feeds them out to 
children along the way, but usually they do 
not indulge in this practice until they have 
reached a state of senility that comes with 
about sixty years. 

He is in every town on a smaller or larger 
scale according to the size of the town. He 
bears about the same actual economic relation 
to things human as a comic picture that we 
find on the wall of a semi-public place does to 
things physical. We stop and look at it and 
it affords us harmless amusement for the mo- 
ment. The sporty bachelor is about as harm- 
less, save that he gives a rather indifferent 
example in selfishness to the young of his 
immediate neighborhood. 



149 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

THE Puterton was one of those con- 
solidations of dwellings — a flat build- 
ing — and it loomed up huge, boxlike, 
against the morning mist, noonday sun, or 
evening dusk of the city, according to the 
time of day you viewed it. With the Puter- 
ton spick and span, new and smelling of wet 
plaster, burning lacquer of the steam pipes, 
and fresh paint and varnish, everybody moved 
in. No sooner were they settled till the 
women discovered, in their back porch meet- 
ings, that everybody was about the same age 
and position in life, and, obviously, they were 
very congenial. All dressed in their best, 
made afternoon parlor calls on their neigh- 
bors, and the word was soon passed around 
that in the whole Puterton there was not one 
misfit — or "wrong font," as printers say. 

Mrs. Fubton, a petite blonde with a hop- 
ping walk, had an idea. She confided it to her 
near neighbor, who, in turn, confided it to the 
neighbor on the other side, and so on down 

153 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

the line. Somebody carried the idea to the 
flat above; it spread tier after tier till every- 
body in the entire Puterton had an idea, and 
that was — to form a card club. 

Mrs. Jobson lived next to the Fubtons, and 
they were fast friends. Mrs. Jobson was a 
stately brunette, had a distinct way of sound- 
ing her "rs" and "ings," and it was soon 
whispered about that she had been an actress, 
for "actresses" will happen in the best of flats. 
One Wednesday afternoon all the women of 
the Puterton were assembled in the flats of 
Mrs. Fubton and Mrs. Jobson — there were 
too many for one flat — and the Puterton Card 
Club was formed. It was agreed that the 
membership should be confined to the Puter- 
ton; each tenant should entertain the club in 
turn Wednesday afternoons, providing re- 
freshments and prizes, so that the burden 
would fall equitably upon all, the prizes going 
to the best players, which was expected. 
There was not a card turned that afternoon, 
but after the business closed Mrs. Jobson, the 
suspected actress, rendered "How Salvator 
Won," with something "lighter" of Will 
Carleton's as an encore. 

154 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

Each meeting of the club, as the season pro- 
gressed, became more elaborate in point of 
refreshments and prizes — each successive en- 
tertainer outdoing her predecessor. The 
membership was so large that it was necessary 
to throw two flats together, and when it be- 
came Mrs. Fubton's and Mrs. Jobson's turn, 
the former suggested that she entertain the 
club in her parents' home, a large and well 
appointed house. 

Now, the father of Mrs. Fubton had houses 
and lands and crisp papers with green printing 
on them. He had built this home when the 
city was much younger and on a street that 
bade fair to become one of the best, but as 
years rolled on the good old man found him- 
self surrounded by small stores, factories, and 
dwellings of honest working people. He was 
a conservative; his children married, and as 
it was impossible to obtain the amount of his 
investment he remained there and made the 
best of it. Mrs. Jobson hinted a few objec- 
tions to the arrangement, but Mrs. Fubton 
was insistent, and the following Wednesday 
the regular meeting of the Puterton Card 
Club was held there. The rooms were dec- 

155 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

orated with "smilax and ferns," the prizes 
were exquisite, the refreshments elaborate, 
there was a full attendance, and everybody 
had "simply a lovely time." 

The following day Mrs. Jobson felt that, 
as she was a partner in the arrangement, she 
should make excuses for holding the meeting 
of the Puterton Card Club in such a low part 
of the city. Of course, this was handed from 
flat to flat, and a little interest added each 
time. When it arrived at the flat of Fubton 
the application "low" was taken as personal 
to the family of Mrs. Fubton. 

At the next meeting of the club the two 
women didn't speak. There came a lull in 
the card playing; Mrs. Jobson made some re- 
mark about the kind and quality of steak 
they used. Little Mrs. Fubton suggested 
something about round steak being the Job- 
son's limit. There came another lull in the 
playing; the talk turned to chorus girls, some- 
body said that they thought the characters of 
chorus girls were much better than formerly, 
and Mrs. Fubton snappingly asked Mrs. Job- 
son if they were not so much better now than 
when she was in the chorus? 

156 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

Mrs. Jobson rose to her full height. There 
was no more card playing that afternoon. 
Mrs. Jobson went to the back porch. Mrs. 
Fubton followed her, and all the other mem- 
bers gathered at the back bedroom and kitchen 
windows to hear the row, Mrs. Fubton said 
that she had always heard Mrs. Jobson was 
a low person, and that before she was mar- 
ried she herself had not even done house- 
work, much less work in a chorus. Mrs. 
Jobson retorted by saying she had heard quite 
the same thing of Mrs. Fubton and all her 
people, and as to working in the chorus — 
she surveyed little Mrs. Fubton from head to 
foot and said she couldn't get in the chorus 
if she wanted to. In the two voiced medley 
of high-keyed talk that followed Mrs. Job- 
son was heard to say that her husband had 
said that the Fubtons were low people. "Mr. 
Jobson had said that the Fubtons were low 
people !" That settled it so far as the women 
were concerned, and Mrs. Fubton coolly dis- 
missed the matter for the time and went 
home. 

Mr. Jobson was a big prosperous young 
broker, who dressed well, and had heavy sacks 

157 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

under his eyes, and smoked fat black cigars. 
The next day he received a call in his office 
from Mr. Fubton, a little blond man who 
talked through his nose. Mr. Fubton de- 
manded an apology for what he had said 
about his wife. Mr. Jobson had said noth- 
ing about his wife, and was not going to make 
an apology, and believed that men should 
keep out and let women settle their own rows. 
All this being in a mild tone of voice. Mr. 
Fubton became very mad, said that his wife 
had said that he had said that his wife's peo- 
ple were low, and finally left the office with 
the statement that he would place the matter 
in the hands of an attorney. 

That night there was a row in the Jobson 
flat. Jobson took his wife to task for saying 
he had said that the Fubtons were "low peo- 
ple" when he had been in town but a short 
time and didn't know them in their family 
history. Their bedroom was lighted far in- 
to the night; the loud bass voice of the hus- 
band was heard by the neighbors with sobs 
and rich contralto-voiced statements uttered 
in a way that only a large woman can who at 
one time had ambitions to play Camille. 

158 



THE FLAT NEXT DOOR 

At the next meeting Mrs. Fubton had a 
sick headache and couldn't go; the resigna- 
tion of Mrs. Jobson was received, stating that 
she expected to move. 

Mrs. Fubton was not satisfied with the 
amount of sympathy she received, and decided 
to move also, and rented a suite in the 
Prunette, another new building right around 
the corner. The Fubtons were only the sec- 
ond tenants in the new building, and were just 
nicely settled when one morning Mrs. Fubton 
went out to place a card in the glass front 
of the letter box to her flat. She glanced to 
the next box, when suddenly everything be- 
fore her grew dark and she staggered back 
into her own apartment. That night when 
Mr. Fubton returned home he found his 
petite wife lying face downward on the bed, 
the pillow soaked with tears. 

"Why, what is the matter, dearest," he 
asked. 

"Oh," she said in convulsive sobs, "the Job- 
sons-are-living-next-door." 



159 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

MELODRAMA has passed away. 
Its place has been taken by the 
movies, and the people who for- 
merly thronged the ten, twenty, thirty houses, 
to witness lurid plays like "Bertha, the Sew- 
ing Machine Girl," and "When London 
Sleeps," are today crowding into the gaudy 
stucco palaces given over to the latest mov- 
ing picture reels. 

But in its day, and that day was not so far 
distant, melodrama played its great part in 
educating a theater-going public, for part of 
the audience that went to melodrama a few 
years ago do not patronize picture shows ex- 
clusively. They received there a taste for 
better things in the theater, and you will see 
them today thronging to some of the better 
class houses. 

Did you ever attend a ten, twenty and 
thirty cent theater when they played melo- 
drama; where the appeal was to dull sensibil- 
ities; where villainy, treachery, sentiment and 

163 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

humor were thrown at them in such large and 
well-defined chunks that they couldn't pos- 
sibly miss them? 

A low-brow, heavy with fish-globelike 
glasses of between-act beer, might nod off in 
slumber, but only for a few minutes, for he 
would be awakened by the neighs of the girl 
with the bed-mattress hair as she protests to 
her father, the muttonchop-whiskered banker, 
against her impending marriage to Harold 
Rutledge as being the only means of saving 
the banking house of Jones & Co. from clos- 
ing its doors forever. If that doesn't arouse 
him there are the snake-like hisses of the vil- 
lain as he drags a very puny child up the road 
to the mountain; or the bull-bellows of the 
black, curly-haired hero making love to the 
bony blonde; or the blustering of the "heavy," 
the politician, with a fifteen-drinks-a-day nose. 
Then if these don't awaken him there is the 
noise attending an act-end climax — the pistol 
shots, shouts of the stage mob, the orchestra 
playing at circus-band pressure, the fall of the 
curtain on the stage when the cheers and 
screams of the audience blend off into lone 
cries from a brazen little boy yelling, "Pea- 

164 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

nuts, popcorn and chewing gum here!" The 
has-been sleeper, thoroughly aroused, looks 
around, licks his chops, gets up and follows 
his fellow low-brows up the aisle and to the 
wet grocery next door for more fish-globes of 
beer. 

It's there, you can't help getting it. There 
is a thrill in every scene — something to catch 
'em and hold 'em in every situation from the 
moment the curtain goes up on Nora, the 
housemaid, dusting the furniture of Banker 
Jones' parlor. Nora appeals to the kitchen 
mechanics by a slam at her mistress and a 
remark as to how hard she has to work. This 
policy of catch 'em-hold 'em is maintained 
clear through, down to the last scene of the 
last act, where they all line up to receive the 
paternal blessing. 

The melodrama is mental dope. 

The melodrama bears the same relation to 
real life as the perfume bottle to real flowers. 

The melodrama pictures to the lower strata 
of intelligence a life ideal in their under- 
standing — it causes them to forget for the 
moment their smoky homes in the begrimed 
factory district; that there are children to 

165 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

herd, and cans to rush, neighbors to fight 
with, coal and old iron to steal, and the 
various little Inharmonious pursuits that keep 
the police mill wheels of justice a-grinding. 

All melodramas were written by rule and 
note — just as a good cook makes a cake by 
recipe. There were several different kinds of 
melodrama, as there are different kinds of 
cake; but each was prepared according to a 
well-defined formula. 

Here is a good general prescription war- 
ranted to "make 'em holler," as they say in 
the parlance of the business : One peck of 
villainy, two pecks of love, one gallon of 
pathos, one quart of dear old mother senti- 
ment. Stir well, allow to stand and settle 
until you can look at it without nausea, then 
add a dash of old flag patriotism, a dust of 
girl ruining, two tablespoonfuls of child ab- 
duction, season to taste with comedy, and 
serve with garnishments of red fire, gun- 
powder smoke, house-by-the-hill, wildwood 
and richman's parlor scenery. 

There is one situation and one line that 
was in every well regulated melodrama — it 
was just as necessary as butter to cake. Here 

166 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

it is: A little tvvo-foot-and-a-half girl, who 
shows the effects of being up nights through 
the paint, will grab a three-foot boss pistol, 
point it at the villain and say in a very weak, 
skim-milk voice: "Touch one hair of my 
mother's head and I will blow your brains 
out!" 

This always "made 'em holler." 

At the conclusion of this line every low- 
brow in the house would bring his paws down 
on his knees, bob up in his seat like a jumping- 
jack, yell "Good!" and finally subside with a 
hiss that sounds like the escape from a cotton 
compress. 

At the general establishment of melodrama 
theaters, of the ten, twenty, thirty class, some 
twenty-five years ago, it was soon discovered 
that a new field of theatrical patronage had 
been created; they made theatrical patronage 
just as the cheap magazines made their own 
readers. More money was made from this 
class of amusement than from any other on 
the very simple commercial principle that 
there are more people with a dime than a dol- 
lar — small but aggregate profits. 

167 



THE MELODRAMA OF YESTERDAY 

At their inception many persons attended a 
theater for the first time, and some of the 
happenings by the seriousness with which they 
took the performances were interesting. For 
instance, when they put on ten, twenty, thirty 
melodrama at the Park Theater in Indianap- 
olis, for the first few weeks they had to de- 
liver the villain to and from the hotel in a 
prison van to keep the yaps from mobbing 
him. 

It is pretty good commerce to appeal to 
dull sensibilities either in theaters, newspapers, 
books, or any of the physical necessities of 
life; for the field and audience are large. 

It even has its application to the palate; 
for confectioners say that the candies with the 
strongest flavoring are the ones commanding 
the largest sale. Two men perceived this and 
made a fortune on it in chewing gum by rea- 
son of its heavy flavoring — one used pepper- 
mint, and the other wintergreen and pepsin. 



168 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

HE was a big oozing hulk of a fellow 
so steeped in cookin' whiskey that 
he exuded an odor like a gas leak, 
— but that was more than two years ago. 

He lived, or rather stayed, at a cheap sailor 
boarding-house down around the docks, and 
cleaned up saloons for his drinks and food. 
The saloon jobs didn't last long enough; for 
he usually drank up more than he cleaned up, 
and sometimes, when In an unusually high 
state of sosh, he cleaned them out, — but that 
was more than two years ago. 

Salutie was his name — at least the only one 
known in bumdom. Derived, no doubt, from 
his deferential way of saluting officers as he 
willingly submitted to arrest. And there 
wasn't a better-known name in police circles; 
for he held the workhouse sentence record, — 
but that was more than two years ago. 

In major matters Salutie respected the law; 
for once a police court judge, pro tem., asked 
if he had ever been arrested before. Every- 

171 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

body laughed, but Salutie spoke up hotly: 
"Only drunk and vag. and A. and B., your 
honor" (vagrancy, and assault and battery). 
There was an appealing hound-pup-like ex- 
pression in his eye and a mellow modulation 
in his voice, and the fact became accepted 
that it was booze within the man rather than 
the man. 

Salutie had been a tool-maker and on many 
a pay-roll for years at four per day. Sud- 
denly he began tanking up and laying off for 
days at a time, — just when a set of dies were 
in a critical stage and no one else could con- 
veniently finish them. He was let out, and 
got other jobs here and there, but his record 
soon went before him and was finally passed 
up all down the line, — but that was more than 
two years ago. 

■ ■ 

A big hulk of a fellow stood before a 
down-town store window on Saturday night. 
The biggest, fattest baby imaginable sat on 
one arm, — held there by one of its legs. The 
youngster scrambled about the big man's 
shoulders protruding its rubicund cheeks and 
staring with hound-pup-like eyes at the pass- 

173 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

ing throng in the last hours of week-end shop- 
ping. The man pointed to a little sailor suit 
with brass buttons on a form in the window 
and talked to a wholesome-looking woman by 
his side. 

"That's 'bout a three-year-old size," said 
the man. 

"That's 'bout a six-year-old size," said the 
woman positively. 

"No," returned the man, "I don't think 
we'll have to wait six years to buy that suit; 
for you know when folks take a kid in a 
clothin' store to get fitted out, and they say 
he's five years old, why the clerk'll say that 
he's big fer his age and '11 take an eight-year- 
size. That puffs up the folks and they buy 
more; good deal like a baby-kissin' candi- 
date." 

Two policemen stood on the corner. 

One nudged the other and exclaimed: 
"There's Salutie!" 

Salutie had a feeling of being observed, 
turned, handed the baby to the woman at his 
side, walked over to the officers and greeted 
them, — not with the old deferential bow of 
more than two years ago, but by extending a 

173 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

hand to each; at the same time casting glances 
backward at the woman and baby with an 
expression of pride one sees in those who have 
acquired something worth while since last 
they met friends of days gone by. 

Salutie introduced the woman — his wife — 
who gave a merry little laugh by way of ac- 
knowledgment. She held out the baby, who 
discharged a loud parrot-like screech and 
made a dive for an officer's star. 

"Ain't that a big baby!" exclaimed one of 
the officers. 

"Looks like you, Salutie," said the other. 

Then both balanced Salutie's baby in palms 
and guessed its weight. Then they looked at 
Salutie's wholesome wife, who gave another 
merry little laugh. 

"How'd you fool her?" asked both officers 
in duet. 

"Didn't fool her," replied Salutie. "She 
fooled me first, — by marryin' the other feller 
— that's what put me to the bad. I tried to 
forget her by tankin' up on varnish-remover 
whiskey. I did, pretty near — and everything 
else I guess. It was like this : I was sittin' on 
one of them benches in the park. My in'ards 

174 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

was about burnt out, — they felt like an old 
rusty stovepipe that had been layin' in a leaky 
shed. It was there by the fountain, where 
the water squirts up, and I sat there watchin* 
it; fer it seemed to sort o' cool off my pipes. 
Well, as I said, I was sittin' there when all at 
once she come along the walk. 

"I was sober in a minute. 

"She didn't look good and I knew some- 
thin' was the matter. I went up to her — I 
felt privileged to; fer she didn't look much 
better than me so far as clothes was concerned. 

" 'Go way,' she sez, 'I never want to speak 
to another man.' 

"Then I did know somethin' was the mat- 
ter. I follered her and found she was wash- 
in' dishes in an eatin'-house. That night I 
follered her agin to where she was livin' and 
I found out that the other feller wasn't livin' 
with her, — it seems she had drawed one of 
them prize-packages of husbands that thinks 
he's got to beat up a woman about onec't a 
week or she won't love him. She was pretty 
husky and he had to get soshed up to do it. 
Well, in the process, he got to likin' to get 

175 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

soshed up better than he did her, and she left 
him. 

"Next day I went out and got a job in front 
of a punch-press, — yes, and the dies in that 
press was ones I made myself more'n two 
years ago. I didn't drink any more, except to 
taper off on and before the month was out I 
had enough to get me a fair outfit of clothes, 
and then I went around there again where she 
lived. It didn't go very well at first, but after 
the fourth or fifth time I got her so she'd 
listen to reason. 

"After I got some of the tremble out of me 
I went up in the tool-shop and got a job at my 
trade. By the middle of winter I had saved 
enough to hire a lawyer to do the unharnessin' 
of the other feller, and Christmas two year 
ago me and her hitched up at a J. P.'s. 

"Last year the kid here didn't have no 
Christmas, unless you call his own life a pres- 
ent — the fact is he brought us a Christmas 
present in hisself. 

"I'm payin' fer property now out here. 
We got flower-beds in the front yard and 
chickens in the back yard — got a big two- 

176 



THE REFORMATION OF SALUTIE 

story-and-a-basement rooster fer Sunday, — 
better come out and help lick him up. 

"I havxn't been down town before at night 
in — let me see — oh, that was more'n two years 
ago. We just come tonight to see if there 
wasn't some little thing we could get him, — 
we just sit there at home at nights by the cen- 
ter table with the bedroom door open so we 
can hear him breathe. When he frets or 
cries, me and her go in and sit by the bed 
awhile till he sleeps agin — seems to me I can 
get just as drunk there listenin' to him breathe 
and sittin' there watchin' the little feller grow, 
as ever I did over the rail of a bum saloon 
usin' my coat sleeves fer a bar rag and histin' 
'em in." 

Salutie turned to go. The baby made an- 
other lunge for one of the policeman's brass 
buttons and let out another loud screech be- 
cause he didn't get it. 

"Well, good night, men," said Salutie. 

And he bowed as he disappeared in the 
passing throng — the old deferential bow; for 
it was, no doubt, his final exit from the lives 
of guardians of the law after his life of — well, 
that was more than two years ago. 

177 



AT KIMES' CORNERS 



AT KIMES' CORNERS 

(A One-Act Sketch.) 

Characters: Joel Jessups, a blacksmith; Nat 
Straighter, a village do-nothing 
Scene: — Crossroads blacksmith's in the center of a 
scattered village, — a rough barn-like building cov- 
ered with a generation or two of tattered circus- 
posters and surrounded by a long line of vehicles 
in various stages of superannuation and dilapida- 
tion, amid piles of wagon-beds, buggy-tops, shafts, 
tongues, scraps of old iron and rubbish. The 
forge is cold, and although the sun is shining 
brightly, the double-doors wide open, the ages of 
smoke have so blackened the interior that it ap- 
pears as a dark chasm. Joel Jessups, a wiry little 
old man in worn jeans pants tucked into his boot- 
tops, a tattered and burned leather apron and red 
flannel undershirt, sits outside on the edge of the 
shrinking-box, looking up and down the road and 
smoking a pipe covered with a brass cap in the 
form of a king's crown. 

JOEL JESSUPS— I was here way back 
in the days when this wasn't nothin' but 
an anvil and forge In the woods. In 
the good old days when I ironed wagons, 
made axes, wedges, log-chains, plow-shares, 

181 



AT KIMES CORNERS 

dog-irons, and bear traps. When me and my 
'prentice boy made hoss-shoes and nails at 
night after the day's jobbin' was done, out of 
bar-iron at nine cents a pound, and the wolves 
and owls, attracted by the light from the 
forge, come out and howled and hooted at us. 
When we went into the woods and burned 
our own charcoal, before there was a pound 
of stone-coal, as they called it in them days, 
west of Pittsburgh. 

(Sighing and shaking his head.) It's been 
many a day since I ironed a wagon, made a 
hoss-shoe, nail, ax, wedge, log-chain, dog-iron 
or bear-trap. (Hears footsteps around on 
the side road, turns, looks diagonally across 
the shop, through a window latticed with rusty 
strap-iron and sees the head and shoulders of 
Nat Straighter.) 

Enter Nat Straighter. 

Nat Straighter — Good mornin', Joel, 
what's you doin'? 

Joel Jessups — Oh, I ain't doin' nothin' — I 
kind o' got the slows this mornin' — to tell 
you the truth, I ain't got nothin' to do. All 
the wagons is made up here at South Bend, 
all the axes at Alexander and the hoss-shoes 

182 



AT KIMES CORNERS 

at Pittsburgh, and they ain't nothin' fer me to 
do 'cept go and buy these here store shoes and 
jist nail 'em on — people won't pay fer the 
shoes I forge out even if they do wear longer. 
I was jist sittin' here lookin' up and down the 
road waitin' fer some old buggy to bust down 
or some old boss' shoe to come off. 

I see by the paper t'other day that these 
here trusts is goin' to hurry the comin' of the 
millennium, and it can't come none too soon 
fer me, fer I don't see what this here world 
of ourn is comin' to. How's all yer folks, 
Nat? 

Nat Straighter — Oh, they was able to eat 
breakfast. My daughter, Birthey, has been 
laid up with quite a bad spell, but castor oil 
is a workin' her wonders to p'form — we're 
great folks fer castor oil at our house. We 
give 'er in great big doses — 'bout as reg'lar 
as we grease the buggy. 

Oh, yes, Joel, by the way, old Eli Yoder 
is goin' to marry again. 

Joel Jessups — Well, well, you don't say, 
who's it goin' to be this time? 

A'^^^ Straighter — One of old Abe Swonks' 
gals. 

183 



AT KIMES CORNERS 

Joel Jessiips (slowly and thoughtfully) — 
Well, I reckon the Lord must be payin' old 
Abe Swonks fer his sins in son-in-laws! 

Nat Straighter — Yes, he come past my 
place last evenin' at early candle lightin' time 
as I was out doin' up my barn chores and he 
was tellin' me. He was on his way out to 
Two-Mile Church. 

Joel Jessups — Why, I didn't know his last 
woman was dead. 

Nat Straighter — Yes, he was sayin' that he 
had as good a woman as ever lived, and that 
he'd buried her just six weeks ago that day. 

Joel Jessups — How many women has he 
had, anyway? 

Nat Straighter — He's buried four and 
this'n '11 make five — I reckon he thinks as 
long as the Lord keeps takin', why he'll keep 
takin'. 

Joel Jessups — I guess you must ferget 
about the one he married once; seems she 
come home from the store next day with a 
washin' machine or a carpet sweeper or some 
other kind of a work savin' thing, and old Eli 
he seed that she was goin' to be extravagant 
and he paid her off and got shed of her. 

184 



AT KIMES CORNERS 

Nat Straighter — I was askin' him which 
one of his women he liked the best, and he 
was sayin' that he believed fer jist a general 
rough-and-tumble woman he would take the 
one he was goin' to get now, but fer genuine 
love and affection he would take the one layin' 
over yonder in the Baptist buryin' ground. 

You remember once, Joel, he got into a 
fuss with the jeweler 'bout engravin' the coffin 
plate fer one of his wives — wasn't goin' to 
pay him fer it? Said he never finished it — 
never put a period after the name. 

Joel Jessiips — They don't generally put 
periods on coffin plates, do they? 

Nat Straighter — I reckon if they ever was 
a place fer a period on this earth it's on a 
coffin plate. 

Joel Jessiips (laughing) — Yes, I reckon 
that's right. 

Nat Straighter (turning completely around 
slowly and pointing back in the shop) — Oh 
yes, Joel, I come pretty near fergettin' what I 
come after. I'd like to borrow that ladder 
back there in your shop — our house is on fire. 
(curtain) 

185 



GRANDMA ROSS' STORY 



GRANDMA ROSS' STORY 

THE old country hotel to you as a boy 
was the first point of contact — reflex 
contact — with the world beyond the 
hill of the home town. There you first saw 
all the varying specimens of human zoology 
— every itinerant type from the pursy 
drummer with a pursy grip, to the showman 
with an educated pig — usually both gave ex- 
hibitions in the hotel dining-room. 

There is the same old wet place on the 
office ceiling — by it you can tell the exact loca- 
tion of the washstand in the sleeping-room 
above. The same cheap spring-balance clock, 
surrounded by many crudely lettered glass 
signs telling travelers to go to Livermore & 
Bacon for fine meats, Peleg Hosstetter for 
fine livery, Steve Hankins for fine furniture 
and undertaking, and Tom Hawk for choice 
wines, liquors and 15-ball pool. 

And the same grease spot is on the wall 
back of the counter, where the proprietor 

189 



GRANDMA ROSS STORY 

rested his head while he sat and dozed wait- 
ing for the eight-seventeen night train. 

There are the smells of wood smoke, stale 
tobacco smoke, coal-oil, a musty cellar and 
country cooking. 

You recall an old grandmother back in the 
family sitting-room before the hearth; how 
you and the Ross children encircled her arm- 
chair in the long winter evenings and listened 
to stories of early days and pioneer life. 

Here is one she selected for particularly 
dark, rainy nights, and told it in a low minor- 
keyed voice — almost bass, to the accompani- 
ment of sighing winds around the chimney 
top, rattling shutter-slats and hooting owls 
and screaming peafowls outside. 

"The town wuzn't more'n a settlement in 
them days. Me an' yer grandfather come 
through in a prairie schooner from Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania. We wuz bound for the Illinoy, 
but heer'd they wuz a-havin' milk-sick bad 
out there, an' as the land-office wuz here, an' 
people comin' to take out proof uv their land 
an' yer grandfather bein' a blacksmith by 
trade, he concluded to stop here and set up 
his forge. 

190 



GRANDMA ROSS STORY 

"They wuz a saw and gris'-mill too, an' 
folks used to come an' camp out around the 
mill while they got their gris' ground. 

"Well, the next spring yer grandfather 
took the money he got from sellin' his land 
back in the States an' built a part uv this 
tavern. 

"One night some years after, the wind wuz 
a-blowin' and howlin' around the chimney jist 
like it is tonight. It had been rainin' fer a 
week er more an' the roads wuz jist awful. 
Yer grandfather an' me had jist gone to bed 
when we heer'd the sounds o' wheels an' a 
boss a-splashin' in the road. It got nearer an' 
nearer. Finally it stopped out in front an' 
then we heer'd, 'Hel-lo-o-o, hel-lo-o-oo the 
house !' 

"It sounded strange and wild — like some- 
body wuz a-hollerin' down a rain-barrel. 

"They wuz talk o' the railroad a-comin' 
through about that time, the surveyors wuz in 
town an' so many hard customers skulkin' 
about that I wuz most afraid to have yer 
grandfather go out — then again, the house 
wuz jist as full as a tick an' I didn't see where 
we'd put anybody else. 

191 



GRANDMA ROSS STORY 

"But yer grandfather said he wouldn't let 
nobody stay out a night like that, no differ- 
ence ef he had to let 'em sleep in the barn. 

"Yer grandfather went down. It wuz an 
old tinker, an' so drunk that he had to help 
'im down out of the wagon. 

"After he'd put his boss and rig away in 
the barn, I made 'im a shakedown on the 
garret floor, yer grandfather half carried 'im 
up, laid 'im down, jerked off his wet clothes 
an' the tinker wuz sound asleep an' a-snorin' 
'fore yer grandfather left him. 

"The tinker didn't come down to break- 
fast, the tinker didn't come down to dinner! 

"The fact is, we all forgot about 'im till 
'long late in the afternoon yer grandfather 
happened to go out in the barn an' seed his 
rig a-standin' there. Then he thought about 
the tinker, come in the house an' started up to 
the garret. 

"He had no more'n got to the top step 'till 
yer grandfather turned, staggered, half fell, 
and then run down the steps hollerin' like an 
injun. 

" 'What on earth is the matter?' I sez. 

192 



GRANDMA ROSS STORY 

"He looked at me wild-eyed, a pantin' like 
a scared hoss, an' he sez, 'Go up an' see fer 
yerself!' 

"I did, an' the sight that met my eyes will 
be with me 'till my dyin' day. 

"There wuz the tinker's skeletin lyin' there 
on the shakedown, an' his bones wuz licked 
as clean an' bleached as white as pearl but- 
tons, an' — an' — what do you suppose? 

"The rats had et 'im ! 

"We looked all around the garret, but nary 
rat could we find. Finally we went over in 
the back part where we kept the barrels uv 
extra feathers fer the beds, and they wuz jist 
'live with 'em. 

"We all went down and heated great soap- 
kettles full o' boilin' water, an' that day we 
scalded upwards uv a thousand rats er more. 

"We kept the rig 'till the hoss died and the 
wagon broke down — thinkin' that somebody 
might come fer 'em some day, but they never 
did. 

"Yer grandfather claimed his chest o' tools 
fer buryin' the tinker's bones an' his night's 
lodgin'. 

193 



GRANDMA ROSS STORY 

"That's where yer uncle got that fine fiddle 
— the one with the picture of the castle inlaid 
on the back an' an old man's head carved on 
top of the peg-box — it wuz under the seat uv 
the wagon done up in an oilskin bag." 

At this point Grandma would look at the 
shivering children about her, their horror- 
stricken countenances, and roll up her knitting 
as if to retire for the night, but one of the 
children would remind her that she had not 
told the part about the tinker's cane, 

"Oh, yes," she would say, "I 'most forgot," 
and then continue : 

"Crosswise in the tool-chest wuz a big 
smooth hickory stick with a ferrule on the 
end. Yer grandfather thought it was uncom- 
mon heavy fer a hickory stick, but he jist put 
it in the closet upstairs, only carryin' it uv 
nights when he went out. 

"He got to lookin' at it one day and dis- 
covered that they wuz a joint in it, an' givin' 
it a hard twist, the top came off, an' a lot of 
sawdust flew out. 

"He poured the sawdust out on the floor, 
an' out with it come — 

"Fifty Golden Half-Eagles!" 

194 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

IN a country town you can always tell the 
preacher's house. You would naturally 
suspect that in a country town there 
would be rich churches and poor churches, just 
as there are poor and rich people, but not so 
at all. 

AH churches are poor in the rural districts; 
for even those attended by rich and well-to-do 
people seem to bite off more in the way of a 
religious campaign than they can chew finan- 
cially. 

They always cut on the poor preacher, — at 
least he has to stand the deficit in salary 
arrears. 

They used to give what they called pound 
parties to the preacher's family, — that is, each 
member would bring a pound of something in 
the way of household supplies to the parson- 
age for an evening party. As the result they 
brought one pound and ate up two, and 
usually the preacher's family had to go 
hungry. 

197 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

While we of today may not believe in the 
doctrines as preached by these men, yet they 
were honest in what they believed and sac- 
rificed and suffered for their cause. Some of 
the most pathetic memories of the writer are 
the results of boyish observations in and 
around the homes of country preachers. 

But to the preacher's house : There is a 
general transient air about it. The end of the 
legs of the porch chairs are broken, nailed or 
wired up; there is usually the earth and pieces 
from a broken flower pot, together with the 
remains of a withered plant scattered over the 
porch floor, where it had been knocked off 
the window sill by one of a very disorderly 
lot of young children. There are always 
dilapidated toys scattered over the front yard 
which is usually bare of grass. These toys 
are usually those broken and cast off by the 
children of the congregation and given to the 
preacher's offspring. 

Usually the children's clothing is that cast 
off by those of the flock, and very frequently 
even then it is cut down from the older mem- 
bers of the family to fit the younger ones. 

198 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

A country preacher does much moving 
about, — he seldom remains more than two 
years with a charge, and inside his house is 
the example that three moves are equal to a 
fire, and if this be true the poor preacher had 
better have burned his furniture. The car- 
pets are worn and show much cutting in order 
to fit them to the many sizes of the different 
rooms they have covered. The patent rocker 
is off its mooring, the nap is worn from the 
plush upholstery and the wire springs stick out 
through the back and seat. The glass of the 
bookcase is gone years ago, backs and covers 
hang loose on the books. The vases on the 
mantel are nicked and cracked; the clock is 
still and the hour hand gone. Everything is 
scarred, cracked and broken and troops of 
kids race through the rooms to add to the 
disorder. 

The preacher's wife has so much to do that 
she does nothing well. She must bear and 
rear children, cook, wash and iron, mend and 
make clothing and all the while keep a smiling 
face to the women of the flock. 

That smile of a country preacher's wife 1 

199 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

There is a certain tired way of standing 
that they have. A weary bend of the knees 
and a stoop of the shoulders and they grasp 
their chin in one of their work gnarled hands 
as they look at you; and through that smile 
you see an expression of doubt, half hope per- 
haps, that there is a bliss coming; just beyond 
this vale of weariness and tears. 

Her wardrobe consists of some paper mus- 
lin house dresses, and gift aprons, and her 
Sunday attire consists of one silk dress with 
many neatly mended rents, a well worn India 
shawl and black bonnet, — with its white nich- 
ing in front and ribbon that ties in a very 
precise knot under the chin. All her Sunday 
items of dress are a generation old and no 
doubt a part of her wedding outfit. 

There are always collections being taken 
and entertainments given to get the preacher 
something, but no one ever seems to give the 
poor wife anything new. 

The writer very distinctly remembers of 
once giving a small sum together with other 
members of a Sunday school class for the pur- 
pose of getting the preacher's teeth fixed. 

200 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

In the old days back home, there was a 
great hurrying among the women of the flock 
about this time of year to get the preacher a 
new overcoat. 

They would go among the country mer- 
chants of the town; one would donate the 
cloth, another the lining, and another the but- 
tons and findings; the tailor of the town would 
cut it to measure and the women of the com- 
mittee would meet in the afternoon at one of 
their homes and sew it up. 

It was never a very creditable garment; for 
obviously the merchants gave that towards it 
which they could not sell. 
■ ■ 

Years ago the writer's parents used to be- 
long to a little church over on the corner of 
Blackford and Vermont Streets in Indianap- 
olis. The congregation were saving so hard 
to "burn the mortgage" that they were spar- 
ing even to the point of light and fuel. 

The mid-week or prayer meetings were be- 
ing held each Thursday night around in the 
homes of different members of the congrega- 
tion who had large houses. The writer's fam- 
ily home was a big old white house with 

201 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

porches built around it until it looked like a 
Mississippi River steamboat, and when It 
came his family's turn chairs were carried in 
from the neighbors. 

Everybody was there. The room was close 
and stuffy with that usual country-church smell 
added to the stale pancake smoke of the din- 
ing-room, and with mixed smells of freshly 
ironed clothes, and that odor that arises from 
gentlemen who care for their own horses. 

One old man who was always in evidence 
and whom all the children called Grandpa 
Pope was the type of the very early pious 
German emigrant. He had a white whisker 
fringe around the lower part of his face which 
seemed to grow up from under his collar 
rather than out of his neck. He was also a 
thrifty type who wore white shirts, black 
clothes, morocco top boots and who smoked 
a long stemmed pipe around home with a 
china bowl as big as a hotel cream pitcher. 

He used to lick his boys for cursing and 
during the chastisement he himself cursed In 
an obscure German dialect that nobody could 
understand. 

302 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

On this particular night the room was full; 
even the space behind the old time Franklin 
stove that burned squirrel holes was occupied 
by the two-story-and-a-basement family tom 
cat who was curled up into the dimensions of 
a four dollar roast of beef. 

The religious part of the meeting was over 
and Brother Van Camp arose in the discussion 
of church finances with some elaborate plan 
of "burning the mortgage." Brother Van 
Camp, by the way, was father of the present 
well advertised pork and bean outfit. When 
he subsided Grandpa Pope rose. Grandpa 
was rather hard of hearing and talked very 
loud and in a dialect that would serve as a 
model for any German comedian. He held 
his head high and haughty with the air of 
confidence displayed by pious people who have 
the assurance of being on the right side of 
things spiritual. 

He said: Brother Van Camp is always 
talking about money, money, money and not 
enough about — 

Just the moment that Grandpa Pope had 
finished the word "about" the cat jumped up 
from behind the stove in the throes of a fit. 

203 



THE COUNTRY PREACHER 

He jumped over the heads and shoulders of 
the "worshipers," climbed up a lace curtain, 
roosted at the top of a curtain pole, its tail 
the dimensions of a pine tree cone, and sat 
there and hissed at the congregation. 

What Grandpa Pope said in finishing his 
statement had this effect : 

Brother Van Camp is always talking about 
money, money, money — and not enough about 
— Jesus Christ look at that cat ! 



204 



AUTUMN 



AUTUMN ■ 

ABACK platform seat on a local day 
train down through Summit, Stark, 
L Wayne, Holmes and Knox counties, 
Ohio, affords a view of a complete nature- 
drama divided into gigantic acts in which all 
the elements of landscape appear. 

As the train winds around the slopes, down 
grades and up again, through cuts and over 
trestles, there is a constant arrangement and 
rearrangement of sky, hills, fields, streams and 
forests in a great creative symphony of greens 
and greys, blues and browns, with now and 
then dashes and daubs of yellow and red — ■ 
made vivid here by cloud-shuttered sunlight, 
there overlayed and toned down by the 
gauze-like purple mist of late autumn. 

The long sounding lines of the hill sway 
and sweep against the sky, now lowering, now 
raising, swinging with each other, then against 
each other, across and finally into the dim 
distance — and all plumed at the top with trees 
in scarlet and gold. 

207 



AUTUMN 

Now Into the open country of grey-green 
pastures, relieved only by gnarled orchard 
trees, rail and hedge fences, shocked corn, 
stacked straw and grazing sheep. 

Through the dark woods with the resound- 
ing rush and whistle of the train. The vine- 
twined tree trunks that appear as supporting 
columns to a roof of branches and twigs and 
remaining leaves. The brush and bushes, the 
frost-burned floor of grasses ornamented by 
layers of fallen foliage, and set with still 
water pools reflecting the many-colored bower 
above in painter's palette splotches. There is 
a sycamore tree here and there — its white 
body and branches standing like a spectre 
tree among its neighbors of the forest. 

The train rushes through a cut in the right 
of way. There are bare brown banks close 
to each side to obscure the view, — like cur- 
tains. But wait a minute ! It is only the dark 
house before the opening of the grand final 
act in the nature-drama. 

You emerge to view a many-mile valley 
below. There are more sweeping and swing- 
ing lines of hills against the sky in positive 
confusion, with brown strips of wagon roads 

208 



AUTUMN 

winding around them; fields in the foreground 
divided by fences and silver ribbon streams. 
The sun rushes down from a clear sky in a 
total glory of light, and the yellow and gold 
and red of the tree-plumed knolls, with a 
purple gauze-like mist, are carried up where 
they are all merged and blended in the 
heavens. 

The train slows down. 

The nature-drama is over. 

Now you are passing out of a great original 
park system where the great open air drama 
of real life has been going on, and out into 
the streets of man where he creates in all ugli- 
ness of selfish hate born of fear. 

Where nature's hand lays off beauty quits; 
where man's hand lays on ugliness begins. 

The train stops. 

There is a smoke-drab wooden station. 

Standing on the platform are some Rufe 
Yoders, Bill Skidmores, Newt Plumes, Cyrus 
Planks and Hank McGees. Most of them 
are scratching their shins with their boot 
heels. 

There are a number of wooden houses 
scattered over the level ground forming the 

209 



AUTUMN 

limits of the town — they are all set very low 
on the foundations in order to save any perma- 
nent material such as brick or stone. Up the 
street is a man on a ladder at the side of a 
new frame store, nailing on sheets of red tin 
stamped out to appear like rock-faced stone 
work. Still further up the way is a brick 
church with two very tall towers on each side 
and a round window between filled with plain 
glass stained with red, white and blue paint in 
imitation of cathedral glass. Over the other 
way is an iron-fenced graveyard with all the 
mounds well formed and sodded, evergreen 
trees planted, a Scotch granite or white marble 
monument over every grave and geometrical 
beds show where flowers bloomed last sum- 
mer. 

The train starts out again and you are soon 
drawn out of man's ugliness into the hills, 
fields and forests where all is beauty. 

Now why is all this? 

Why does man, surrounded as he is in this 
chain system of natural parks, abounding in 
both big beauties and simple sweetness, re- 
flect only barren ugliness and inefficiency in 
his own creations? 

210 



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